Gorgeous art below the cut by the absolutely phenomenal @rhydart; full version here (which you should check out because the in-text compression doesn’t do it justice).
Grian finds it upsettingly easy to remember how to walk in the void. Not that it’s a hard thing to do – you just swing down into the darkness, and expect there to be something to stand on, and there is. Easy! It’s an easy little trick.
The hard part, of course, is getting that little touch of other in your bloodstream that’s necessary to make the void to listen to you. The upsetting part of ‘easy’, of course, is exactly the same: that other is still there, inside him. He’d half hoped… but no. No, it’s still there, and that’s a goodthing, he tells himself, firmly enough he almost believes it.
It’s good, because he’s going to need it, if he wants to get Scar back.
The false bottom of the Boatem Hole cracks, shatters into illusory nothing as soon as he puts a foot through it. The others cry out, alarmed, when he jumps in without so much as a by-your-leave. Mumbo even tries to grab him, as he drops.
Mumbo stops trying to grab him when his feet land solidly on thin air.
“Excuse me!” calls Grian, into the darkness, trying to ignore the eyes he can feel on the back of his neck. Mumbo is spluttering something incomprehensible. Pearl is making a high, thin noise of stress and disbelief in the back of her throat. Impulse is silent, and Grian can hear the why-didn’t-you-tell-us-you-could-do-this judgement in that silence, but it’s fine. It’s fine. He’ll deal with all that later.
For now, Scar is the priority. Everything else can wait.
