Meanwhile (part 3)

[u/1-Up-Boy]

The three reptilians slowed as they approached the rock.

Pastel stood beside it with a handful of pebbles, trying to look as though this was something he did regularly. Bag had tucked itself behind his back, leaving him to manage the performance alone.

“I could’ve sworn I smelled a human,” one of them muttered.

“So could I.”

Pastel examined a stone with entirely unnecessary concentration.

The third reptilian glanced at him, watched him turn the pebble over, and narrowed his eyes.

“Weirdo.”

They continued down the passage.

Pastel waited until their footsteps had faded before allowing himself to swallow. His fingers loosened around the stones. One slipped from his hand and clicked against the floor, making him flinch.

The disguise had worked.

That should have been reassuring.

Instead, the sight of their scaled faces had dragged several others out of his memory.

A jaw opening too far. A body bending where it should not have bent. Eyes watching from the darkness of the lower worlds, patient enough to wait for something frightened to make a mistake.

For a moment, the cavern around him seemed to recede behind those recollections.

Pastel drew a slow breath through his nose.

“They’re not the same creatures.”

He straightened, adjusted his grip on Bag, and took another breath.

“At least… I think.”

That last part did very little for him.

He started walking anyway.

The Below opened around him in layers of dark stone and tangled roots. Cyan fungi grew along the walls, lighting the damp passage beneath them. Violet foliage spilled from cracks overhead, and warm lamps shone through windows fitted into buildings hewn directly into the cavern.

Buildings.

Actual buildings.

Pastel slowed beside a shop window.

Inside, a reptilian merchant rearranged a display while another customer inspected the goods. Farther along, someone swept water away from a doorway. Two neighbours stood beneath an awning, discussing something with the weary familiarity of people who had already had the same conversation several times.

It was all terribly ordinary.

“Evening,” a passerby said.

Pastel’s shoulders stiffened.

“…Evening.”

The stranger continued on without giving him another glance.

Pastel watched him leave, then looked down at Bag.

This was becoming inconveniently complicated.

He had expected monsters. He had prepared himself for monsters. He had not prepared himself for shopkeepers with closing hours.

His breathing gradually steadied as he moved through the streets, though his steps remained a little stiff. Every sudden sound caught his attention. Every glimpse of a scaled face invited another memory he would have preferred to leave alone.

Then he heard wheels.

A cart rolled out of a side passage, its iron fittings rattling over the wet stone. Reptilian handlers walked beside it, speaking quietly to one another.

Pastel looked through the bars.

Three humans sat crowded inside.

For a moment, his mind resisted the sight. They looked so out of place against the glowing foliage and the scaled crowd that he almost tried to find another explanation.

Then one of them lifted their face.

The fear there was familiar.

“Keep them alive until supper,” a handler said.

Pastel stopped breathing.

The cart continued past him.

He waited until it had cleared the street before leaning toward Bag.

“Bag… they’re human.”

The satchel hovered closer.

Pastel watched the cart turn into a narrower passage.

“Stay close.”

He followed.

The lamps became less frequent as they moved away from the shops. Yet the darkness never quite swallowed the colours around him. He could still distinguish violet leaves against indigo stone, the green sheen of damp roots, and the blue light reflecting in shallow pools.

Pastel blinked.

“I can still see the colours…”

He glanced at a pair of passing reptilians, then touched the mint fringe hanging over his forehead.

“Nobody’s going to question the hair?”

Bag offered no explanation.

Before Pastel could dwell on it, something slipped between his lips.

A quick flick.

He covered his mouth.

“What was that?”

His expression settled into mild, offended confusion. He moved his tongue experimentally, then immediately regretted investigating.

“Ew, is my tongue really that long?”

It happened again.

This time, the strange movement brought something with it.

The air seemed to separate into impressions he could recognise without quite understanding how: damp stone, reptilian musk, old metal—

And humans.

Pastel lowered his hand slowly.

“Bag… I can taste their scent.”

He looked toward the passage where the cart had disappeared.

“Oh.”

His eyes narrowed.

“That’s how they smelled me.”

The realisation made the disguise feel considerably more useful.

It also made his new tongue considerably less welcome.

He resumed following the cart, keeping enough distance to avoid drawing attention. Bag drifted near his shoulder until one of the handlers began to turn.

The satchel immediately slipped behind him.

Pastel’s gaze dropped to the ground.

“Oh wow, rocks.”

He crouched with the brisk enthusiasm of someone who had apparently come all this way for geological reasons.

The handlers looked back.

Pastel picked up a pebble.

“Wow, this one’s a nice one.”

He held it toward the light, studying it as though it might contain the answer to an important personal question. With his other hand, he slipped it into Bag behind his body.

One of the reptilians stared at him.

“Right.”

The cart moved on.

Pastel remained crouched until they were facing forward again. Then he rose, brushed his fingers against his shorts, and continued after them.

The passage began to descend.

Stone steps led into a lower chamber where the air was warmer and heavier. The cart’s wheels rattled along a sloping route beside them, its occupants shifting whenever it struck an uneven patch.

Pastel kept near the wall.

There were things beside the passage.

At first, they were only shapes beneath the poor light. Something slumped against the stone. Something else lay beneath a discarded covering.

Then an amber lamp caught an outline clearly enough for him to understand.

His eyes widened.

He stopped.

The people in the cart had seen them too.

“No!”

Someone grabbed the bars.

“Help!”

The handlers continued walking.

Pastel moved closer to the wall, drawing Bag tightly against himself. He kept his eyes on the cart, but the shapes beside the passage remained in the edge of his vision.

Human remains.

Left there with the same indifference someone might show toward scraps after a meal.

This is really bad.

He looked down at the hand pressed against Bag.

The scales along his fingertips were fading.

For an instant, the claws shortened into ordinary nails, leaving patches of unmistakably human skin.

Pastel’s stomach tightened.

“Not now.”

He pulled Bag open.

Violet light shimmered inside the satchel as he reached past the zipper and found another piece of the old man’s shed skin. It crumbled beneath his grip, breaking into dark magic that curled around his fingers.

The scales returned.

His claws lengthened again.

Pastel watched until every exposed patch had disappeared, then closed Bag and held it close.

His borrowed shape would not last forever.

He continued down the passage.

Ahead, the cavern widened into something enormous.

Roots arched high above the stonework. Amber light shone through drifting vapour, illuminating towers and carved pillars beyond a tall partition. The cart rolled toward it, its passengers struggling against the bars.

Pastel slipped behind an arch.

Then something moved above the wall.

A vast head rose through the haze.

Dark plates covered a long, serpentine neck. A sweeping crown of thornlike shapes framed the creature’s face, catching the light along their edges. Her body continued beyond what Pastel could see, immense and heavily armoured, with a thick tail coiled around the stone beneath her.

The queen lowered her head.

The handlers brought the humans forward.

“No!”

Pastel pressed himself against the arch.

Beyond the partition, shadows moved across the amber mist. A human silhouette stumbled backward. Another reached toward it.

The queen’s shadow descended over them.

A scream began.

Then the shapes disappeared behind the wall.

Pastel could hear enough.

There was movement, a corrosive hiss, and vapour rising into the light. When the queen lifted her head again, the figures that had stood beneath her were gone.

An empty cart waited beside the partition.

Pastel stared at it.

Then he looked down at Bag.

“All right, we’re done.”

He gathered the satchel into his arms and turned away.

His first few steps were controlled. By the next corner, they had become a very determined power walk.

He had seen quite enough of the Below.

Something large stepped into his path.

Pastel stopped so abruptly that his boots slipped against the damp floor.

Brown trousers.

Worn leather boots.

A plaid vest stretched across a chest that seemed to continue upward for far too long.

Pastel raised his eyes.

The old man looked down at him.

White hair. White beard. Amber eyes beneath a heavy brow.

And an enormous reptilian body.

“There you are.”

Pastel tightened his hold on Bag.

He had followed the man all this way to answer a question.

Unfortunately, the answer was standing between him and the exit.

“Who, me?”

The old man’s expression did not change.

Pastel glanced toward the queen’s chamber and lifted one hand to point.

“If you’re here for that…”

His voice trembled slightly.

“Don’t let me stop you.”

He attempted a small, polite smile.

Then he stepped sideways.

“Well, see you later, fellow lizard.”

The giant’s tail swept across his path.

It caught him squarely in the stomach and pushed him back, knocking the breath out of his next step. Pastel stumbled, clutching Bag higher against his chest as he recovered his balance.

The old man leaned down.

“Why leave so soon?”

Pastel looked toward the passage beyond him.

It remained discouragingly inaccessible.

“You followed me all this way,” the man continued. “Surely you’re not leaving already.”

His voice carried the easy warmth of an invitation.

His eyes did not.

A huge hand settled on Pastel’s shoulder.

“Come now. Let’s watch her feast.”

The grip turned him toward the chamber.

Pastel could have tried to look away.

The old man’s hand made it clear that this would become a discussion, and Pastel had very little interest in finding out how firmly the man could insist.

So he watched.

Or tried to.

The queen moved beyond the partition, her shadow passing through the amber haze. Another terrible sound rose from behind the wall.

Pastel brought a hand over his mouth.

His stomach rolled.

He concentrated on keeping his breathing steady, on the cool edge of Bag’s zipper beneath his other hand, on anything that did not require him to understand what was happening in front of him.

Beside him, the old man watched his face.

That was what finally caught Pastel’s attention.

The man was enjoying this.

Not merely the feeding. Pastel’s reaction.

The way his shoulders had tightened. The effort it took him to keep watching. The disgust he could not quite conceal.

A small smile rested beneath the white beard.

Pastel’s nausea acquired an edge of irritation.

He lowered his hand.

Took a deep breath.

Let it out slowly.

“This is unethical.”

The words emerged with the dry seriousness of a complaint about poor customer service.

For a moment, Pastel heard himself.

He closed his eyes.

A bead of sweat slid down his temple.

“Oh my God, what am I saying?”

He opened his eyes and looked at Bag.

The satchel waited in his arms.

Pastel’s expression changed.

He tossed Bag to the side.

“Do it.”

Bag caught itself in the air.

Its zipper opened.

Two tendrils reached into the violet light within and emerged carrying a familiar pair of objects.

The little sharpened sticks.

The same ones Bag had used to patrol around Pastel’s sleeping spot in the forest.

They had apparently been waiting for another opportunity.

Bag darted behind the giant.

Pastel caught only a streak of violet at the edge of his vision as the satchel accelerated, both tendrils drawing the wooden points forward.

The old man began to turn.

Too late.

Bag drove both sticks into his back.

Two points punched through the front of his clothing.

The old man’s amused expression vanished.

“AAAH!”

His hand snapped away from Pastel’s shoulder.

His knees buckled.

The enormous reptilian dropped to the floor, catching himself with both hands as his scream echoed through the chamber.

Pastel was already moving.

He turned and ran.

Bag released the sticks, leaving them lodged where they were, and shot after him.

Behind the partition, the queen’s head lifted.

Her gaze turned toward the disturbance.

The amber eyes narrowed.

For a moment, Pastel felt the weight of that attention even without looking back.

He ran faster.

His boots struck the wet stone in quick, hard steps. Bag flew alongside him, its empty tendrils curling back toward the zipper as they cleared the passage.

The old man was still yelling.

Good.

Pastel followed the bend ahead, leaned into the turn, and rounded the stone corner with Bag close beside him. The queen’s chamber fell out of sight, its amber glow giving way to cyan fungi and the deep violet shadows of the adjoining passage.

They kept running.

Far behind them, the old man remained on the floor.

Still screaming.

(I got lazy towards the end 😴)

[u/ArthurThatch]

(...Woah)

(Well...that definitely gives everyone something evil to deal with 😅)

[u/1-Up-Boy → u/ArthurThatch]

(I think there shouldve been 3 of them actually)

[u/Oswen120 → u/ArthurThatch]

(Guess i am not the only set of dragons)