Chapter Text
After being hatched from the small, digital prison Scarab had been keeping him in, Kheirosiphon barely had the chance to gain his bearings and snap an insult at the god auditor before he was quite literally kicked from the rest of the crowding cosmic delinquents. Without even trying, The Scarab flung him across the far reaches of the world, where he received a quick, harrowing tour of the city's odd, offputting mundanity.
He tried, futilely, to right himself in the air, but wound up crashing into an alleyway before he could properly brace himself. Unprepared and turned awkwardly, he smashed into something hard, and was dazed by the impact for several moments. Head pounding, fire dimming, he lay amongst the rubble and remains of what must have been a dumpster.
That was fitting, wasn’t it? That he was no more than trash tossed out to be disposed of. When the god auditor who had apprehended him won whatever fight he had been dragged into and relocated Kheirosiphon again, it was likely that he would be sentenced to the incinerator for the desertion of his post. The best case he could hope for was probation and being sent back to his job amongst the patronizing and conceited priests who cared only for the prestige their titles granted.
He almost preferred incineration, to that outcome.
Kheirosiphon had claimed to hate the Sacred Flame. While he thought the scorching embers that he had to tend to as one of the less important priests as harsh, it was not the flame itself he hated, so much as the lonely, isolating way the priests had to conduct themselves, and the way they treated those in their surroundings.
He should never have left the Temple of the Sacred Flame. But the lifestyle and the other priests had simply been so stifling, so stuck in their ways, that Kheirosiphon knew he would have lost himself if he had stayed. The few who yielded themselves to the flame seemed to give up all of their identity, and the ones who didn’t grew self-absorbed and overly prideful. Scornful of outside ideas or actions, such as, say, the brewing of tea.
The entire system of the cosmic hierarchy expected those created for a purpose to want to dedicate their entire being to that purpose. There was no way out if someone wanted to deviate from the norm. The only option that existed was to follow what they had been designed for, and never to question what they were told. Paying mind to the workings of the wheels of time and the natural order of things was important, Kheirosiphon understood that, but the nonstop work and unreasonable expectations took a toll on his spirit.
In his opinion, it was surprising that more individuals didn’t seek something more than their station provided, though he understood that fear was a great motivating factor in that.
But Kheirosiphon wanted something more. He wanted a quiet, normal life without worship or devoting every part of himself the Sacred Flame. He wanted something more from life than watching supposedly unworthy people being judged by the scorching, healing properties of the flame. He wanted more than the obsessive worship and snide words of his betters.
He wanted out.
There were risks, of course. Kheirosiphon had known that settling down anywhere could lead to his capture, to the incinerator, to being killed in battle by a god auditor for running.
Even if he were killed in battle, it was likely that he would be issued a new body so he could be judged and punished properly. It wouldn’t do to let something like death allow for some type of mercy.
They were cosmic entities. Dying was a hazard. Grudges were held as deep convictions, and challenges and duels to the (albeit impermanent) death were a frequent occurrence. As such, issuing new bodies was a simple thing to do. God auditors were even permitted to kill other entities as a temporary action during a criminal’s apprehension if they deemed it necessary.
In the safety of the temple, Kheirosiphon had never died. His final stand against Scarab in the tea shop had been a last-ditch effort, and he had been overpowered and subdued with what had seemed to be embarrassing ease. Kheirosiphon hadn’t even seen it coming. As vigilant as he thought he had been, he hadn’t anticipated that the kind stranger wrapped all in ribbons who had spent the entire day conversing with Kheirosiphon and drinking his tea might have been The Scarab.
At least he had put up a fight. At least he had tried.
Kheirosiphon had never died before. He had never been captured or imprisoned—that is, if he didn't count his inescapable post at the temple, or the occasions on which the priests confined him to his chambers for insubordination. He had never been kicked across a city before. But neither had he been thanked for doing something before. He had never been graced with the smile of someone who appreciated what he had done for them. He had never lived enough to do anything, before he took the leap and ran for his life. Ran to find more . His existence had been lukewarm, and meaningless. He had been nothing before–
“Well look at you,” an elderly voice creaked, wavering and amused and somehow lilting flirtatiously all at once.
Kheirosiphon turned to peer into a previously unnoticed doorway a few feet away and watched an old man step further into the alley, his steps doddering, and his face weathered by sunlight and smiling brightly.
“I don’t suppose you’re here to, oh, abduct little old me.” To his vague horror, the man tilted his head and winked.
“... I’m not.” Kheirosiphon slowly pushed himself up, though he still felt faint. He felt tepid, his light dimmed, compared to the usual burning heat and comforting warmth that he should have exuded by his very nature. He was tired .
“Oh? I suppose that's too bad.” The man turned aside, his attention drawn away by the echoing sound of a distant explosion out among the distant city streets. They listened in unison to the sound of far-off falling rubble from whatever battle Scarab was waging. The old man tutted before returning his full attention to Kheirosiphon, as if the world-ending commotion just across town didn't concern him. “I don’t suppose a big, fiery brute like you might enjoy a cup of tea?.” Something about his tone and the radiant smile on his face made the insult come out sounding like a gushing compliment.
Kheirosiphon must have been dreaming. In a daze, he nodded slowly, letting the faint curl of burned-out, enfeebled flames shift with the movement. “Are you offering, sir?” One last cup of tea felt too good to be true, after what Kheirosiphon had gone through for the simple chance to make some.
Of all things, the man giggled. “I am.” He ambled back to the doorway, motioning with his hand for Kheirosiphon to follow him. He cast a coy look over his shoulder and smiled invitingly. “ Anything for a big, roaring fire like yourself.”
Kheirosiphon stood, hesitated, and then followed after him. “I would love some tea, sir.”
Trent was odd, to say the least.
After inviting him inside, he graciously seated Kheirosiphon, chattering about the tea shop he owned and operated. When he stepped around to put on some tea, Kheirosiphon reluctantly told the man that he had little money to pay with but was gently laughed off as he was assured that everything was on the house. After all, he wouldn’t miss the money from one customer if the world were about to end. So saying, Trent cast a glance of lighthearted resignation out the window, toward the growing clamor of cataclysmic battle and the peaking figures over the tops of buildings—as if the commotion were of no more concern than the ruckus of a bunch of rowdy neighborhood children, playing a little too rough and loud down the street.
When Kheirosiphon inquired why Trent was so blasé about the possibility of the city being destroyed around them, the man confidently declared that his alien husband had been visiting recently, and would hardly allow him to meet any sort of horrid end without stepping in on his behalf.
Trent seemed rather enthused when Kheirosiphon lent his ear to his story, going on with meandering, distracted enthusiasm as he tried to recount the scattered events of his life to his captive audience. As it turned out, the man had been married thrice, not counting his ‘alien husband,’ whom he still carried a torch for, despite his infrequent and inconsistent visitations.
Kheirosiphon had no idea if extraterrestrials were common in this world, though Trent’s conviction seemed real, and his stories detailed enough to seem true. After all, didn’t Trent’s nonplussed reaction to Kheirosiphon imply that he had seen odder in his lifetime?
The only real oddity was Trent’s ceaseless innuendos about old flames and unsubtle flirtations as he interacted with Kheirosiphon, eliciting rare amusement despite the dire circumstances. Kheirosiphon’s willingness to believe the man seemed to thrill him, as he went on the more Kheirosiphon asked questions and nodded along.
It was that tidal wave of passion that made Kheirosiphon suspect nobody else believed Trent’s stories of being a serial runaway groom, of his bygone adventures on the high seas, or about his hybrid alien children. This suspicion grew when Trent caught sight of one of his employees and beckoned them out from the kitchen. “Won’t you be a dear and fetch a pot of my famous apple tea for our handsome, alien guest?”
After emerging from the kitchen and staring at Kheirosiphon, struck, the young woman straightened, lifted her eyes skyward, appearing to resign herself to something, and disappeared back into the kitchen. Presumably, she would oblige Trent’s request.
—
The tea was wonderful.
—
At some point during the conversation, when Trent's interest turned from his own life story to that of his fascinating guests, Kheirosiphon shyly divulged that he owned a tea shop, himself—in a manner of speaking. Of course, how the system and currency had worked on the drift was different, with many resorting to bartering or doing favors for each other in the difficult times after Hugo had left. Kheirosiphon had taken simply to providing as much tea as he could, as long as he was able to procure the resources for it, as he wanted more than anything to have people savor and taste his tea, rather than worry over making a profit off of it.
He recognized that things likely worked differently, here, and he found that he didn’t know how to explain it quite right.
"Oh-ho- ho!" Trent chortled, adopting a mischievous air after his confession. "Trying to scope out the competition, eh?"
Kheirosiphon laughed a little bemusedly, averting his gaze, only to hear a tittering laugh at his supposed shyness. "No," he assured the man. "I..."
Trent lifted his large nose into the air and puffed out his chest, setting his hands on the table. "I'll have you know, I don't think I can compete with alien tea... But I won't go down without a fight! Especially not if it’s you, big boy ~"
Kheirosiphon smiled and shook his head. "Don't worry, I'm not looking to compete... And anyway, it was… my shop isn’t here ."
"Oh?" Trent asked, settling down. His tone was curious again. "Where is it, then? I thought I would have heard about an alien moving into town, but it is exciting if you’re just visiting. Maybe I could come visit you, next time my husband comes back around. Eh, Kai?"
Kheirosiphon's smile faded. His thoughts went out to his humble little teahouse, where he once warmed the hearts and hands of the healing community on the distant land of The Drift. He would probably never go back there, and he wondered what would become of his shop. Maybe Normulon would watch it, for a while... But—
But The Drift didn’t have the resources to keep an empty place open for very long. Not when people were sharing their homes and sleeping on friends’ roofs in the luckily mild climate of the main pod. There was already a lack of space and energy, and a building being abandoned was just asking for someone to take it as their own.
"... Somewhere far away," Kheirosiphon said softly. "I guess I won't ever go back there again, actually." He guessed he didn't have a tea shop after all. Not anymore.
At least someone would make good use of the space, though he found little comfort in the idea of his tea shop being changed so drastically.
Trent's eyes misted with heartfelt sympathy at Kheirosiphon's unspoken plight. "Oh," he sadly sighed. Then he sniffed, and suddenly straightened, and brazenly declared in a choked-up voice, "Th-Then you could work here with me! We’ve been a little understaffed if you're looking for work. I mean… it’s no owning your own shop unless you try to usurp me, but it would be work. "
Kheirosiphon smiled sadly, and almost commented on his worry regarding the supposed apocalypse in progress outside, and the noises that seemed to grow closer and closer—as Trent had done when Kheirosiphon inquired about the bill.
But instead, Kheirosiphon could only bring himself to say, "That sounds nice."
—
And, against all the odds—that was exactly what happened. Kheirosiphon was given a job, and the world didn’t end. Everything seemed to work out.
—
... For a while, anyway.
“You’re up!” A disembodied voice rang out. Before he knew it, the backroom of the teashop that Kheirosiphon had been standing in was replaced by an empty, white void.
He recoiled, casting his eyes about the blank expanse cast in softened watercolors. The effect might have been calming, in any other circumstance—but Kheirosiphon knew what he was here for, even if the room seemed to be dressed up as a facsimile of friendliness and comfort.
“Oh, come on. Don’t give me that face,” the ball– Orbo, that must have been Orbo, said. He rolled around the flat expanse, circling Kheirosiphon curiously, as the deserter stood still and let his inspection commence. "You did know about this meeting, after all."
Although Kheirosiphon knew there was some type of meeting coming up, there had been no timeframe given, and his ideas of when they might get around to his case were nebulous at best.
While he knew it was important, agonizing over the impending meeting, when he had been given so few details on what to expect and had no means by which to ask for more, would have only given him anxiety, so he had tried to turn his mind toward more immediate concerns. As such, he found that he wasn’t quite sure what to say going forward.
“Sorry,” he tried.
Orbo lolled in place, giving the impression of a forgiving shrug. “Ah, no worries. But, well, you’re a tricky one, Kheirosiphon,” Orbo noted, rolling about on his axis as if to indicate a tilting of the head.
“This is about my hearing?” He asked, though he was already sure of the answer.
“You know it!” Orbo winked.
Casting a gaze around the bleak, empty room for some sort of seat, Kheirosiphon nodded.
“Let me help you with that.” Orbo's words were accompanied by a faint blue glow, and the sudden appearance of a seat: a wide, sturdy thing that Kheirosiphon sat in once it solidified. “Sorry about that, we’ve found that emptier meeting rooms provide fewer items that can be turned into weapons. You know, if somebody gets too upset.”
Kheirosiphon let himself nod, trying to parse out if there was a hidden threat or warning to those words. “I understand. Thank you for letting me sit.”
“Of course," Orbo said with a solicitous, sympathetic smile. "I take it you’re ready to talk?”
Kheirosiphon wasn’t sure that he was. But he knew that he couldn't keep putting this off any longer. So, having little other to do than hope for the best, he nodded. “I am.”
“Alright,” Orbo rolled around in front of him, humming thoughtfully. “A lot of who we’re dealing with right now had more… minor infractions, all things considered. Sure, the Stapler of Time could be an issue if a mortal got hold of it, but it was really just someone swiping office supplies, you know? But you, Kheiro—can I call you Kheiro?—You abandoned your post, right?”
Lying at this point seemed rather foolish, and a fair bit more impudent than Kheirosiphon was comfortable with—even for someone who had so brazenly abandoned his post. He shrank in his seat, feeling his fires begin to grow weak, smothered by his feelings of defeat, and confessed with inescapable guilt, “I did.”
“Well,” Orbo sounded thoughtful, turning to shift his face to the side consideringly. “We’re handing out a good number of exceptions anyway, and you’re on our list.”
“Still?” Kheirosiphon asked, surprised. He had figured that perhaps if he were the one of Scarab’s batch who committed a more serious crime, he wouldn’t get the same amnesty that he had heard whispers about when he had been brought in to give his initial statement.
Most of the usual court proceedings had been waived, as everybody who had been in Scarab’s possession at the time was being granted forgiveness for their transgressions. Many of them had been minor, aside from Kheirosiphon. When they had sent him back to where he had been summoned from, the judge dealing with him had grimaced and informed Kheirosiphon that they would probably be seeing him again once they worked some things out, since he was still actively abandoning his job.
“It was Scrabby who caught you, right?”
It took Kheirosiphon a moment to connect the word ‘Scrabby’ to ‘The Scarab.’ He nodded, once he realized—though he wondered at the odd, almost affectionate-sounding nickname.
“Right, well it was a lawful catch. I mean, Scrabby doesn’t really do unlawful, as much as he was toeing the line before all of this, but yours was a bigger deal than most of the other guys that he egged this go-round. That’s probably a lucky thing, considering you all got free and none of you were crazy megalomaniacs. It would've been a real issue if one of his more dangerous bounties got loose in a world like the one you all were on. But I mean, your position was pretty prestigious. A lot of people would kill for that kind of job.” Orbo rolled around Kheirosiphon again, pausing beside him, rolling a bit closer, almost in range of touch. His meandering tone turned into something sympathetic. “What was your issue, if you don’t mind my asking? Not enough benefits? I want to know if I can help.”
Kheirosiphon lifted his gaze, feeling for the first time since arriving something like a sliver of hope. “You... do?”
“Sure,” Orbo simulated nodding with the shifting of his features. “I don’t think we’ve been going about this stuff the right way. It’s been a bit chaotic since the Citadel went down, but stuff is being dealt with a bit drastically nowadays. So I wanna hear what your issue was.”
No one had ever asked Kheirosiphon why he didn't like his old job. They had simply told him that he should have tried harder. “I didn’t feel appreciated,” Kheirosiphon immediately, earnestly admitted—and then felt foolish for it. But when Orbo did nothing but make a sound of acknowledgment and look at him expectantly, Kheirosiphon's confidence grew, and he went on, “Frankly, it’s a stifling job full of horrible people. I don’t like what the Sacred Flame has become. I don’t like how we worship it, or what we do to people in its name.” Kheirosiphon poured his heart out, faster and faster until he was dumping his regrets and grievances at Orbo’s feet. He found that his words were getting away from him, as Orbo silently and patiently offered himself up as the first sympathetic ear Kheirosiphon had ever known. "The position isn't an honor if I don't want it, if I never asked to be..."
Orbo's brow furrowed in a little frown, and Kheirosiphon took a breath when he realized he hadn't in a long while. His flames brightened, in the corners of his eyes, as he took in much-needed oxygen.
Thus composed, Kheirosiphon quietly concluded that, “... I’ve always wanted to do something else .”
“And we don’t exactly have a retirement plan,” Orbo mused, once Kheirosiphon slowed to a stop. He took a moment to consider Kheirosiphon, shifting around as if looking at him from different angles might help. “... Tell me what you want instead.”
“I think,” Kheirosiphon steepled his approximation of fingers together and looked down, watching as they seemed to meld together, fire melting into fire. “I want to stay in that new world and continue working at the tea shop I’ve been staying at. I want to help the people there rebuild.”
Orbo hummed in consideration. “That’s pretty admirable,” he said, sounding almost impressed. Then he rolled forward as if leaning in conspiratorially. “Look, between you and me, we’re wiping most of this Fionnaworld stuff under the rug, now that it's been properly canonized and all that. I could transfer you over there... But you’d have to agree to be checked up on every so often by a god auditor. Just so we know you aren’t causing any issues. You might be called upon to deal with any big problems, but I could get you registered as the cosmic being on-site, in case of emergencies. Fionna has some sort of True Hero destiny coming up the pipeline, and stuff might get hairy.”
“But… I'd be allowed to stay?”
Orbo smiled. “You would.”
That was better than Kheirosiphon had hoped for. Emboldened, he let himself smile faintly. “And the alternative?”
Orbo's smile turned wry. “You’re off the hook for running, since that’s what Scarab caught you for, but I’d either have to put you back with the Sacred Flame, or issue an alert that you still haven’t returned.”
Kheirosiphon nodded. The choice seemed obvious. “I would like to stay in Fionna’s world.”
He would miss the community he'd found on the Drift—his first apart from the Temple of the Sacred Flame—but he had faith that they would survive without him. They had before he had arrived there, after all, and he was sure that they would find out how to last without another run-away pedaling his dreams and drinks. Besides, he had spoken with Fionna and her friends a few times. Though the instances had been very brief, he could tell that she was good. Or at least, she wanted to be.
She and her friends, Kheirosiphon's coworkers, and even his odd employer, Trent—perhaps they could be his new community, if he put in the effort to make those connections.
And this time, he could be himself. No more running and hiding from his past. No more looking over his shoulder, wondering whether each day of freedom would be his last. No more living in dread of the day he would finally be apprehended for truancy and punished for it, or worse—forced to return to his joyless, thankless station.
“I’ll see what I can do, mate.” Orbo’s grin shifted into something very genuine and kind. The warmth of his expression was surprising and alien coming from someone so involved with the affairs of the cosmic office—especially after seeing Scarab’s fury up close and personal. Everything he did seemed at odds with Kheirosiphon’s experience and expectations regarding his celestial peers.
Kheirosiphon couldn’t help but be charmed, so he nodded, helpless to do anything but believe Orbo was as good as his word.