Chapter Text
It’s low and quiet, at first.
The first time Sampo hears it, he’s sitting in a full-house Underworld tavern. Seele is by his side, a scowl resting on her face at the rowdiness of other patrons behind them, but silently nurses her third beer nonetheless.
He almost mistakes the sound as the jingle of the small bell hung above the front door, how it always tinkles to greet incoming customers. Something in it, however, sounds off, but not enough to cause imminent alert to Sampo’s alcohol-addled senses. He blames it on his sixth—no, seventh?—drink of the night, shrugging the minor queasiness off with yet another gulp, letting the jingling noises drown and himself afloat in the mixed cacophony of the crowd.
It’s not until much later, when Sampo can barely crack an eye open, red face tucked into his folded arms atop the bar, that he realizes something isn’t right.
“They jus’ keep coming t’night, don’t they?” Sampo drawls, tongue as heavy as lead struggling just to utter the words out of his mouth.
A blur of purple shifts next to him, from what he can see with his single, barely open eye. “The hell are you on about,” Seele mutters, tone flat and sounding bored. Another testament to how long she’s been keeping Sampo company tonight. Not that he can tell the time at this state, but he’s pretty sure it’s way past midnight already.
Sampo lifts his head up slowly, and instantly regrets it with the way the world spins around him. He stubbornly holds on, gesturing vaguely to where he hopes to be the general direction of the door. “Y’know, people,” Sampo says, words slurring together, “the bell ab’ve the door hasn’t st’pped ringin’.”
He supposes there are like ten, twelve people clambering into the tavern as he speaks, with how long and seemingly incessant the bell has been chiming, and from the cold gust of wind he feels blowing on the hairs on his nape.
Sampo hears more than he sees Seele putting her glass down on the table with a thud, wincing at the abrupt noise assaulting his dulled senses.
He then grunts as he feels himself being basically manhandled—Seele tugging on his arm as she stands up from her perch on the bar stool. “Alright, party’s over—you’re going home, Koski.”
“Whaaat?” Sampo whines, voice peaking in the wrong pitch. “But ‘m not drunk enough yet.”
“Oh really,” Seele scoffs, hauling Sampo out of his seat, which he promptly, disgracefully falls into a pitiful crumple that would be face-first on the filthy tavern floor if not for Seele effortlessly holding him up. “Not drunk enough but failing to realize that we’re the only ones here since an hour ago?”
Something in Sampo halts.
He blinks his eyes open, squinting at the sudden onslaught of the overly bright, Geomarrow-powered light bulbs hanging above him, and is met with the sight of an empty tavern, the door leading to the exit tightly shut with no indication of it having been opened.
What?
He hears the bell chime again, the sound ringing in his ears, yet the little bell hanging above the door remains stock-still.
Oh I’m drunk drunk, is what Sampo wants to simply think. But the queasy feeling comes back a few folds, now that he’s more aware than he was hours ago, and he fails to shake off the goosebumps starting to crawl up his arms.
He must’ve been mulling over the uncanniness for a little too long, because Seele is looking at him as if he’s grown two heads before muttering under her breath and starts tugging his deadweight forward.
“C’mon, move. Zoning out can wait until we get to camp.”
Sluggishly taking a step forward and then another, Sampo is basically relying on muscle memory at this point to keep having one foot in front of the other. It’s not for another three hefty steps later did Seele’s sentence register in his head.
“Camp? No, nuh uh, no camp. Take me home. I wanna sleep on a bed.”
Seele makes a face like she wants to drop him and just leave him in the cold, unforgiving Underworld floor. “The only bed you’ll be sleeping on is either the Wildfire cot, or Natasha’s clinic after I knock your fucking teeth out.” She shrugs as Sampo attempts to muster his most wounded glare. “Your choice.”
He passingly thinks about the rickety bed Natasha’s clinic offers and perks up at the sheer upgrade in comfort it would offer compared to the musty spare cot in Seele’s tent, but immediately shuts down the idea after imagining the inevitable scolding he would receive from Natasha tomorrow morning.
“Your humble abode it is then, Miss Seele, if you would be so kind to have me,” he finally relents, ultimately deciding it’s better to wake up with a sore back than an earful while nursing a nasty hangover.
Seele laughs as she opens the door with her foot, swiftly maneuvering to get the both of them out of the tavern. “Like my unwelcomeness ever stopped you before,” she grumbles with no malice. Sampo lets out a huffed, defeated laugh.
A third laughter joins them, fleetingly eerie and some degrees wrong as it passes Sampo’s ears. If Seele hears it, she doesn’t appear to show any reaction to it, so Sampo promptly chalks it into being merely the passing wind.
He barely remembers to file it into the back of his mind, a mental folder aptly named Things to Think About While Sober, because all he could think about at that moment is his desire to sink into a pillow and conk out until next afternoon.
+++
The next time he hears it, it gets clearer. Nearer. Like a looming shadow closing in on him that he can’t get away from.
Sampo is running across the Administrative District, a bubble of laughter escaping his throat as he hears the ever-familiar footfalls of a certain Captain behind him.
It’s more of a routine for them now these days, because if you think about it, there’s no way Gepard hasn’t been able to catch him with the plenty of chances spanning across the six years they’ve gotten to know each other. Not when Gepard is a very capable Captain with a ridiculously high success rate in every other mission except this one.
Sampo almost swoons. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought Gepard’s doing this on purpose.
He abruptly turns his head to face his persistent pursuer, blowing him an exaggerated kiss before making a sharp left turn behind a building. He revels in the way Gepard sputters, steps faltering, and muses in how easy it is to make the man blush. It’s always a delight for Sampo to find new ways to see the pink dusting the blonde’s cheeks—from leaving fresh roses on Gepard’s windowsill every morning, to merely crowding into his personal space close enough to see the light freckles scattered upon the bridge of his nose like cosmic constellation.
Not that he’s tried absolutely anything and everything. Sampo’s mind idly wonders what sounds and expressions Gepard would make if Sampo just threw his inhibitions away and closed the distance to kiss him.
Well! A gloved hand comes up to slap on his own cheek, willing himself away from the dangerously vivid mental image. Definitely not the train of thought he dared to venture in broad daylight!
He hears Gepard closing in on him, footsteps easily falling in tandem to Sampo’s rhythm. “Aww, how cute,” Sampo croons, tilting his head to glance sideways at the scowling blonde. “Even our footsteps match now, huh!”
Gepard looks conflicted into halting a little just to prove Sampo wrong, or to just barrel forward faster to close the remaining gap. “Shut up and stop running, Koski,” he finally says, keeping his pace. “We both know there’s only a dead end up ahead.”
“Maybe I’m just in the mood for you to back me into a corner today.”
“To finally put these handcuffs on you?”
“Oohhh, feisty,” Sampo laughs, the sound boisterous in the echoey alley, “not even taking me out to dinner first?”
Gepard sputters, and ah, there we go, Sampo smiles in triumph. The adorable Landau blush is back! “That’s not what I—oh for Aeon’s sake, shut the fuck up!”
Sampo picks up his pace, laughing all the while. Chases with Gepard are always so, so much fun. “You’re gonna have to catch me first, sweetheart!”
He takes another left turn, to which both he and Gepard know would lead to a dead end. It’s not his first time pulling shit like this, and Gepard knows it, but he would chase him until the end of it anyway, fully knowing that Sampo would just slink away at the last moment with either a bomb or another similar flourish.
Honestly, Sampo’s head can’t wrap around the idea of why Gepard keeps putting up with his antics.
The high wall of the dead end street grows nearer, and Sampo almost expects the shove coming from behind him. He feels himself being flipped until his back is against the cold brick wall, face-to-face with a panting Gepard who’s towering over him in all his imposing Silvermane armor glory.
Sampo might be the slightly taller one out of them, but his lithe stature that’s built for running is never a match for Gepard’s broader one.
A saccharine smile on his face, Sampo leans forward to brush Gepard’s nose with his own. “Hi,” he breathes. He hopes that if Gepard catches him sounding breathless, he would chalk it into Sampo being tired after running across town and not because this is the closest their faces have ever been in proximity of each other.
“No,” comes Gepard’s instant reply, blush creeping up his face nonetheless. He has Sampo’s hands pinned above his head, and only belatedly realizes how compromising this position looks. He quickly retracts his hand away and resorts to caging Sampo with an arm against the wall, his other hand reaching back to fish out the handcuffs out of his pocket.
Sampo’s eyes flit briefly towards the action. “Oh, again with the cuffs? Let it be known that I, Sampo Koski, normally demands to be courted with at least some nice dinner and a half before one can charm me into trying spicier things in bed,” he sighs with theatrics, eyes closed and all that.
The next second, he opens one to meet Gepard’s from below his eyelashes. “Although...I usually make exceptions for young, hot Belobog nobles.”
It might be a trick of the light, but Sampo almost swears he sees Gepard’s expression darken—something he’s not seen the blonde’s face wearing.
“No sane Belobog noble would even make the time to chase down a petty thief like you,” Gepard grits through his teeth.
The implied no one but me left unspoken is painfully apparent, but none of them are brave enough to bring it up.
“Why of course,” Sampo finally says, after taking a few seconds to regain his bearings. His entire body itches to do something, anything to gain some sense of upper hand for himself, because if there’s anything Sampo loathes, it’s the feeling of losing control. So he lets his now free hand to trail the fur lining on the collar of Gepard’s armor, as if dusting away specks of snow, acutely aware of how the man’s brilliant blue eyes follow the movement. “That’s why you’re always my favorite.”
Seeing as Gepard is too busy willing his blush away to give him a reply, Sampo prattles on. “Y’know, with how much you want me all to yourself, cuffs and all—we might as well just get married today,” he says, pausing to stifle a laugh at the blush that comes back to Gepard’s face full force. “Even the Heavens are smiling down on us with how the church bells have been ringing around town all day, don’t you think?”
Some rich family must be having a wedding down in the Cathedral they ran past, and the ceremony must be a big one at that—because Sampo’s sure they’re a good distance away from the Cathedral by now yet the bells still chime loud and clear in his ears, somehow louder than the hustle and bustle of the Overworld plaza on a weekday afternoon.
It’s only when Sampo sees Gepard’s face contort into one of confusion does he realize that he said something wrong.
Gepard opens his mouth, and never in Sampo’s life did fear instill so quickly into his very being with just two, seemingly harmless words.
“What bells?”
Sampo blinks as if Gepard’s just answered him in a language he doesn’t speak. “What do you mean, what bells? It’s been ringing so obnoxiously loud the entire time, the—Gepard, are you not hearing this?”
Frowning, Gepard tears his gaze away from Sampo’s face, still oblivious to the fact that Sampo’s expression is quickly melting into one of fear, to strain his ears to catch anything in his surroundings. Sampo watches, undaring to look away, holding onto the sliver of hope that Gepard hears it too and it’s not just him slowly going insane.
His mind flies back to some nights ago, in that tavern with Seele. Back then he was too out of it to realize how jarring the entire ordeal was, and the fact that it’s happened twice is one time too many to be called a mere coincidence.
Sampo dreadfully watches as Gepard’s brows that've been knitted in concentration slowly relax, but the ever-growing confusion on his face effectively snuffs out the bud of hope Sampo’s been holding on to, further setting his initial suspicion as solid as stone.
“I don’t hear anything,” Gepard says slowly, looking back at him. Sampo feels his heart wrench. Gepard’s brows are knitted again, but now in an expression more akin to...
...Concern?
Sampo’s never been on the receiving end of such an expression from him before. And for him to finally do so means that Sampo’s usually well-crafted mask is slipping much more than he thinks.
“—hear me, Sampo?”
“Huh?” Sampo blinks himself out of his stupor. Gepard’s frown is deeper, now, and he feels cold hands grab onto his own trembling—he’s trembling?—ones.
The chimes get louder, stronger, closer . It’s like suddenly Belobog has twenty big church bells and thousands of smaller ones tolling all around him, above him, beside him, in his head, all at once.
And, oh—there are fucking footsteps now, too, but the alley is empty save for the two of them, and none of them are moving.
Sampo’s eyes dart wildly around them, searching, looking—to of course, no avail. Please , he mouths, more to himself and barely making a sound. Please, make it stop.
Deep down, he feels like he should know what’s happening. No, in fact he does know—and he’s just rejecting the very idea out of his head. He scrunches his eyes shut, bringing his hands to his ears, with Gepard’s grip still around his wrists.
“No...” Sampo pleads, whispers, whimpers, broken and small. “It’s too loud, the ringing, I—stop, please—”
He can no longer see what face Gepard is making, but he feels him kneel down alongside him as Sampo slides down the wall in a pathetic, crumpled heap.
No matter how much he curls in on himself, or how tight he clamps his hands down over his ears, he knows how futile the attempt is. The tolling intensifies, so too does the footsteps, the sense of dread hanging heavy in the air it almost feels suffocating.
“Sampo,” he hears Gepard say, voice drowned in the cacophony of chimes and rattles. Gepard’s fingers are busy unfurling Sampo’s own, tangled in the blues and whites of his hair as if it would help block out the noise. “Sampo, what’s going on?”
Sampo couldn't answer even if he tried. A wobbled whimper tumbles out of his mouth instead, and there’s a muttered shit he hears before Gepard’s hands rest on his cheeks, gently lifting his face up from where it was hidden.
Sampo dares to blink open just to see Gepard’s face so alarmingly close, yet blurred through his tears. He doesn’t even register himself crying until gentle thumbs wipe his tear tracks away, featherlight in their touch.
“Sampo,” Gepard calls him again, and if it were in any other circumstances, Sampo would dramatically swoon over the tone he’s using to call him by his first name, because there’s nothing more fitting to describe it besides protective, and dare Sampo say, fond.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I—just—tell me. Let me help you. Breathe with me.” Gepard babbles, clearly not built to handle this kind of situation, and how confused he sounds almost makes Sampo feel bad if he himself isn’t currently going through all kinds of mental torment imaginable.
He follows Gepard's patient instructions with ragged breaths, desperately trying to calm his erratic gasps until he could feel the air entering his lungs in a semblance of normalcy again.
It’d be foolish if he’d thought that it’d be the end of it, because of course, his Aeon wouldn’t have gotten their infamous reputation for being so merciful.
Because that’s when the final piece finally arrives, the main course of the cacophonous nightmare Sampo’s been plagued with for what felt like months since he’s sat on that dead-end alley.
A harrowing laughter echoes around him, reverberates through the air, crawling in his eardrums and under his skin, until the feeling of pure, unadulterated dread settles in his numb limbs and bones.
The laughter does not relent, sinister in its echoes, and so do the bells, and the footsteps, getting infuriatingly louder as if to mock him. And when Sampo blinks away his tears yet again, his heart drops as he sees that he and Gepard are no longer the only ones in that alley.
Some distance away behind Gepard emerges a shadowed figure, their appearance a macabre tapestry woven with everything grotesque and uncanny.
The figure, Sampo realizes with bone-chilling epiphany, is a sorry excuse of what can be described as a jester. In place of what’s supposed to be a traditional jester’s cap, a nightmarish crown of gnarly thorns and serpentine coil-like confettis rests atop their head, the multitude of bells hanging from it jangle with an eerie, dissonant chime that echoes throughout the alley like a familiar melody but played in all the wrong keys.
The figure moves in an unsettling otherworldly grace, with every slow, deliberate step it takes closer to where Sampo is sitting. Sampo can make out the tattered garments that hug the figure in all the wrong ways, drenched in crimson as red as blood and ebony that seem to absorb all light, the fabric seemingly alive as it rustles and jostles with every movement they make. The suit they’re wearing is a disharmony of harlequins and pinstripes, patterns clashing with each other, distorted in the sense of where one ends and the other begins.
The face—no, rather, the mask they don as a face—is a mockery of joy: red, twisted visage frozen in an unsettling grin that stretches too wide, and hollow slits for eyes that curve far too unnatural. There is a gaping, jarring hole right in the middle of where their forehead is supposed to be, and from the center of it beams a flash of light too glaring, as if it was put there just for the sole purpose of blinding people who dared to look at it for too long.
Their shoulders suddenly tremble in mirth, and an eerie, distorted giggle once again dances in Sampo’s unfortunate ears, sending shivers down his spine. Sampo wants to run, to thrash, to kick and claw and rip himself away from this reality if he could help it, yet he just sits there, frozen in fear as his limbs refuse to cooperate.
From the corner of his eyes, he sees Gepard furiously mouthing what seems to be his name over and over, but Sampo can no longer hear him. As if he’s robbed of the control of all his five senses, having them forcibly attuned to the looming figure of the jester that looks like it’s pulled straight out of Sampo’s worst nightmares.
Speechless, numb, and drained, Sampo couldn’t even find it in him to look away.
The jester stops a good distance away, not close enough to reach yet also not far enough for comfort, before unfurling one arm—limb?—towards him. The arm moves, elongated and jointed in ways that are wrong and impossible, contorting bouncily not unlike the spring of a jack-in-a-box toy, but also fluid and graceful in its motion.
A ghostly, pale, disembodied gloved hand that definitely wasn’t there a beat ago, appears an arm’s length away from Sampo, a bracelet of bells clunking with the movement from their non-existent wrist.
With a horrified sob, Sampo finally accepts the sheer futility of running away.
It is with absolute, utter defeat that Sampo finally acknowledges their presence: that Aha, The Elation, is standing right there before him for reasons not yet made known, defying all laws of nature, probably also cosmic rules beyond Sampo’s vast knowledge from all his years being a Fool.
Aha laughs at him, again—at the expression he’s making, or maybe at how the fight finally seems to leave his body, because of course everything is funny to them.
The Elation finds humor in both joy and sorrow of everything in the waking world, and Sampo happens to be the unfortunate one to be their newest plaything.
“Come, my child.” A low, bellowing voice booms inside his head, all around him, effectively drowning all the bells and the cackles until all Sampo could hear around him was static. The floating hand in front of him beckons, fingers furling and unfurling as if it wanted Sampo to lose his mind and take it.
The voice rings again, this time taking on a dissonant, high-pitched range not unlike a rasping opera singer. The words float like a song, like a jammed record that Sampo wants to smash and mangle with his blades so that he could never listen to it again. “You’ve stayed long enough.”
And Sampo finds his voice again amidst his panic, hoarse and sounding nothing like the usual confident, cocky Sampo Koski, but he could barely find it in himself to care as he rasps, “No, no...,” Over and over.
Yet, his Aeon just stands there, cackling at him, before finally snapping their fingers—and suddenly all of Sampo’s dulled senses hits him back in full-force, and only now is he acutely aware of how hard Gepard’s been shaking him, rattling his body with vice-like grips on his forearms, nails digging deep enough to draw blood even over Sampo’s jacket.
“Sampo, Sampo, Sampo!” His name comes tumbling out of Gepard’s mouth like a broken record, assaulting his recently-reacquired hearing so much that Sampo winces. His unfocused gaze flits between the blonde man—whose eyes are blown so much his Landau blue pupils are barely visible—and the looming figure of his Aeon behind him.
And something inside Sampo snaps.
Trembling in both numbing fear and unbridled fury, Sampo pulls out a smoke bomb and hurls it as hard as he could to Aha’s direction. Futile, he knows, but he absolutely needs to make sure that his rage comes across to them, loud and clear like the bells haunting him since that night in the Underground tavern.
The bomb, predictably, goes right past Aha’s transparent visage, before it explodes in puffs of white smoke. The laughs turn uproarious, bouncing on the stone walls, unmistakable mockery right in Sampo’s face.
“Fuck!” He hears Gepard shout, bursting into a fit of coughs, and Sampo’s head snaps. He completely forgot that Gepard was there, and his gut twists with guilt, bile rising up his throat in yet another fit of panic.
He should’ve thought some more before throwing that bomb without warning, he could’ve at least given Gepard a heads up before doing it, he could’ve—
A shrill tenor cuts into his jumbled thoughts, halting them with the cold, chilling tone it lets out. “I’ll come find you again, Child of Elation.” Aha says in his head, and Sampo screams , fingers close to ripping his hair out, clawing, pulling—get out, get out,
“GET OUT!”
Erratic, discordant laughters ring loud in the stagnant air, and Sampo watches in horror as the thick clouds of smoke seemingly avoid Aha, instead flowing around and behind them, once again defying all logic. And realization douses Sampo like a bucket of ice water over his head; that whatever he does to fight, whatever attempts he would make as a form of retaliation, would never amount to more than mere child’s play in the eyes of an Aeon.
With it comes back Sampo’s ability to finally move his legs, and Sampo wants nothing more than to bolt and scramble away from the imminent danger and the haunting chimes and noises and sleep it off like it’s just a really bad dream—
—when a hand barely misses from grasping the tail of his coat.
Sampo swivels back in dread, and comes face-to-face with the sight of Gepard slowly dragged under the influence of his sleeping smoke.
Sweet, kind, stubborn Gepard, refuses to break eye contact with him despite his rapidly closing eyelids, and Sampo’s heart breaks. A collateral damage in a matter that shouldn’t involve him.
“Sam—S’mpo,” Gepard coughs out, words slurring as he hacks his lungs away. “Wh’re you goi—”
Aha explodes in laughter again, now bordering into a maniacal howl, as if it emanates from multiple sources simultaneously, and that’s what finally tips Sampo over the edge, filling him until he’s overflowing with the purest, rawest emotion known to man: fear.
He needs to get the fuck out of there, immediately.
Knees buckling as he cowers, a weak “I’m so sorry,” is all he manages to rasp out from his throat before flinging himself off the dead-end wall, leaving the limp, slumbering Silvermane Captain behind him.
+++
The third time he hears it, it’d be a lie if Sampo said he didn't see it coming.
Sampo wakes up abruptly as he feels a sudden spotlight blazing upon him, white hot and all-encompassing as he blinks to adjust with the blinding surroundings.
He immediately realizes that he’s in a dreamscape—because nothing in the living mortal world he walks on could ever look this...off-putting.
The air around him is thick with an unnatural stillness, perpetual unease clinging to the stale atmosphere. Sampo twitches, trying to will his brain to move his arms and legs, to no avail. He looks down to find himself suspended, his feet dangling a good distance above the decaying wooden floor.
Welp, off to a horrible start, Sampo thinks, willing himself to swallow the lump and bile rising in his throat to calmly assess the situation. As calm as he possibly could in that situation, anyway. Even the knowledge and self-reassurement that he’s merely in an especially bad nightmare isn’t enough to placate his growing panic.
The thing is, his nightmares have never been this startlingly vivid. Ever since his encounter with his Aeon in that alley a few days ago, and with the constant sound of ringing bells haunting his every waking moment, his certainty about anything regarding the safety of his life has been distressingly low. Hell, he’s not even sure if anything that would happen in this dreamscape wouldn’t cause him any bodily harm when he wakes up the next morning.
If, and that’s a big fucking if, he wakes up the next morning.
A fine, thin glint of something wound around his knees catches in his peripheral vision, and Sampo tries to crane his neck to find where it ends. He finds himself craning up, up, and up above...and his breath catches in a pathetic mixture of a laugh and a sob.
In the heart of a dimly lit forsaken theater, an eerie puppet show unfolds under the malevolent guidance of an otherworldly puppeteer. There sits Aha, towering ten times the stature of a normal human, their red, twisted, smiling mask stares down upon Sampo with one hand propping up their chin.
Their other disembodied hand floats above the blue-haired mercenary, obscured in the dimness, an oversized control bar the shape of a cross held between elongated, spectral fingers. Their index finger twitches, and Sampo’s limbs jolt into life, pulled by the strings under their command.
And there it goes—the bells and the laughter, the noise a surreal quality as they echo throughout the theater seats, which Sampo belatedly realizes are far from empty. Thousands, countless masked figures sit facing the stage, each seemingly a carbon copy of the other, with the same smiling crimson masks as his Aeon’s perched on their obscured faces.
Aha giggles, pitched and unearthly and so very inhuman, and Sampo’s never felt so utterly defenseless in his entire life.
“We meet again, my child,” Aha sings, gracing Sampo with a greeting. Another twitch of their fingers, and Sampo suddenly dances—a leg in front of the other, an arm tucked below his chest as he bows to his Aeon in mock salute.
Elation laughs, and so do the audience, their uniform cackles a dissonant tune chiming like harrowing bells at the macabre display. “Ah, always a pleasure to be greeted by my favorite Emanator.”
Sampo feels his heart squeeze.
If there’s one thing he never wants to be reminded of in his joke of a life, it’s that.
Resolutely trying to keep his voice from trembling, Sampo looks up to meet the gaze behind the smiling mask. “Forgive my rudeness, but I believe I haven’t done anything out of the ordinary as of late to warrant the grace of Your direct interference.”
He pauses for a moment, before shaking his head. Fuck it. “Surely Your favorite Emanator hasn't unknowingly thwarted any of Your grand cosmic plans?”
He feels like he’s stabbed himself with a knife and voluntarily twisting at the wound. It pains him to admit the fact (the curse) that he’s an Emanator of Elation coming out of his own mouth, but he doesn’t have many options to go with that could possibly prolong his life. Might as well use the most obvious bargaining chip, even if the roll of those words on his tongue makes him feel sick to his stomach.
Aha hums as if deep in thought, fingers idly making movements that cause Sampo to unwillingly dance along with every twitch.
“Worry not, child,” they say, a while after he’s content watching Sampo prance around the stage in mechanical, orchestrated movements. “In fact, it’s the other way around.”
Shifting their position to lean their masked face closer towards the stage, Aha’s hand moves from their chin to drum lithe fingers intermittently on the rickety wooden stage, each beat sending waves of tremor under Sampo’s feet.
“Your mission in Jarilo-VI has long since concluded,” Aha states, matter-of-factly. “The Stellaron has been subdued with your aid, and Belobog has been steadily marching towards rejuvenation.”
Inwardly, Sampo concurs. It’s already been a good year or two since the Stellaron crisis was averted, and the Trailblazers have long since continued their journey among the stars.
The curtains of Sampo’s show had drawn to a close with the Trailblazers’ departure, a conclusive end to his tasks. But instead of planning a swift retreat back to World’s End Tavern, where his fellow brothers and sisters of the Fools await to celebrate his return, Sampo chose to stay back.
“So pray tell, my child,” Aha trails off, his obscured gaze questioning and expectant. “Why do you still linger?”
Sampo pauses. That’s a difficult question to answer.
There’s still so much havoc to wreak around here, he’d said back then, when he had reconvened with the Fools via stacks of some old television in the deserted Rivet Town. Sampo had no idea how the Fools could even manage this bizarre form of communication between them and a planet as recluse as Jarilo-VI, but ultimately decided against asking. Such information wasn’t important towards his prolonged stay in Belobog, after all. Belobog ain’t gonna get rid of their beloved con-man Sampo Koski so easily.
And there really was much havoc to wreak in the otherwise stagnant city, Sampo thought. With the majority of their citizens seriously devoted their time and effort into rebuilding Belobog to its former glory, Sampo felt like he could do them all some good by providing some high-quality entertainment.
Said entertainment entailed going around town pulling cons and heists out of his ass until the Silvermane Guards were hot on his tail. Hey, it’s not Sampo’s fault if Belobogians were too uptight for his sense of humor!
But there’s only so much he could do to invoke people's irritation and his own elation, and there’s only so much to do until everything grew repetitive. Routine. And Sampo Koski does not do routine.
Routines bore him, growing up as a Child of Elation. Routines mean something constant, and Sampo’s always preferred a life of unpredictable twists and turns, controlled chaos over stagnant security.
But somewhere along his six years in Jarilo-VI, maybe Sampo had grown soft.
He didn’t know how it started, or when, but he’d find himself worming his way out of the Underworld just to seek the familiar sight of a particular blonde. He’d find himself doing unnecessary things and pulling shit on purpose knowing he would catch the attention of the high-strung Silvermane Captain. He’d find himself racking his brain for ideas of shameless flirts and cheesy pick-up lines just to revel in the sight of pink dusting Gepard’s cheeks.
Sampo Koski has never been a man of routines, but he had slowly been falling into one. It’s a bottomless void, from what Sampo’s been able to see, and Sampo thinks he should be afraid of spiraling down towards something so new and uncertain. But how could he, when he’s instead greeted by a warm embrace, gently pulling him down to anchor his elation to a single person?
Sampo has always been a pretty good liar, but this , he couldn’t even fool himself into thinking otherwise.
The indisputable fact that he’s very much in love with Gepard Landau, and that he’s been stalling his departure from this Aeons-forsaken planet just because he longs to have him as a constant in his life.
Aha’s sudden laughter snaps him out of his daze, and he looks up to find the eerily smiling mask both unmoving and impossibly contorting into an expression of understanding. As if Aha’s been reading his mind and following his inner turmoil the entire time.
But of course Aha can, and of course Aha did , because their laugh grows louder into borderline maniacal, as if it’s the funniest thing they have ever had the pleasure of witnessing, bellowing and echoing into a disharmonious choir with the laughter ringing from the audience seats.
Sampo could only watch helplessly, dangling from the otherworldly marionette strings holding him up as Aha practically laughs in his face. As if having feelings is a concept so outlandishly hilarious for an Aeon to rumble in uncontrollable mirth.
“Oh, that’s a good one,” Aha rasps out after their laughter finally dies down into small fits of dissonant giggles. It takes everything in Sampo not to thrash out as Aha brings out his oversized gloved hand to tuck under his chin, turning his head to meet their gaze.
“No other ever comes close to the Elation you bring me, boy. No wonder you’re always my favorite toy.”
A toy. That’s all anything and everything is to Aha. Sampo would be foolish to ever let himself think that he’s an exception.
Sampo‘s vacant eyes look away, averting his gaze anywhere but the damned slitted eyes on Aha’s mask instead of giving them any form of answer, and his Aeon’s laugh dies abruptly in their nonexistent throat.
And there’s a sudden shift in the air around them—the cacophony of bells and giggles, being a constant long enough that Sampo’s mostly tuned them out into mere background noise, comes into an abrupt halt until all he could hear is unnerving, sticky silence.
With a lift of their finger, Sampo could almost hear his bones rattle with how the puppet strings snap him into movement.
“But you’ve grown boring,” Aha drawls, yawning as if to emphasize his point. “Jarilo-VI is no longer in need of your service.”
A party popper pops, somewhere out of sight, raining confetti down the stage, silver shreds of paper nesting in Sampo’s hair. With it comes a giant piece of paper—a letter, Sampo presumes, phantom hands unfolding it to reveal its contents for Sampo to see.
An invitation to Penacony.
“I believe you can better serve your purpose there,” Aha says, and Sampo could almost hear the grin in their voice. With a snap of their fingers, the giant invitation bursts into a kindle of flame, before a normal-sized golden envelope with a crimson seal emerges from it and slides across the stage to stop at Sampo’s feet.
Sampo looks at it, and his breath comes out ragged. He knows Aha is staring at him above his head, trembling in mirth and waiting for any sort of reaction, and really—Sampo would rather die right there and then than give them the satisfaction.
Instead, he just waits, counting to four repeatedly in his head as he tries to calm his erratic breaths, until Aha speaks again, bestowing upon him the inevitable ultimatum.
“You’ve done enough here. It is time for you to leave.”
There it is.
How ironic, don’t you think? The Aeon of Elation, ripping their favorite child away from the very being—the sole person in the countless planets Sampo’s ever had the chance to traverse—that brings him elation, the very thing they preach?
“Give me a month,” Sampo suddenly says, surprising even himself that his subconscious still had some fight left in him instead of just ducking his head in acceptance.
Steeling himself, he once again turns his gaze to meet Aha’s head on. If he’s going down, he thinks to himself, at least he’s going down swinging.
“I have to come up with goodbyes,” Sampo prattles on. “Tie up loose ends. I have clients who’d look for me if I’m gone for too long, and there are people—” He cuts himself off, biting his tongue so hard it draws blood.
He thinks about Seele, who always sneers at him, ready with quips to return in their banters, but always drags him by the elbow for rounds of alcohol on nights after successful Wildfire missions.
He thinks about little miss Hook, and her ragtag group of equally little friends, who always squeal in joy at the sight of him, running and clinging on his leg to ask for candies and piggyback rides around Boulder Town. He always makes sure to store candies somewhere in his pockets for whenever he runs into his fellow Moles, because Hook had unceremoniously made him an honorary member one day when he’d proven himself to be too good at hide-and-seek.
He thinks about Natasha, her soothing storyteller voice a contrast with her parental chidings. The person who never fails to drop a text to check in on him despite her busy schedule, to merely ask him if he’s had a proper meal, because Sampo’s used to going for days without. The closest figure he’s ever had to a kind, caring sister.
And he thinks about Gepard. He thinks about his awful attempts to sing his sister’s song when he thinks no one is looking. He thinks about the initially surprised and confused smile he wears on his face when Sampo first leaves roses on his windowsill, watching his expression slowly morph into one of anticipation as he continues to do so for weeks and months after.
He thinks about how beautiful he looks when he blushes under Sampo’s incessant teasing, how the rosy blush on his cheeks brings out the brilliance of his Landau blue eyes, the color of Belobog’s skies on its most beautiful, clearest days.
He thinks about the rough, callused hands he could’ve held in his gentle grasps. He thinks about how soft the blonde locks would feel on his fingers if he’d tucked them behind reddening ears. He thinks about the soft sigh that would mingle with his, if he’d just closed the gap between them and finally claimed his lips between his own.
And he thinks about the cruel reality: that he’d never get the chance to even try , because he’s going to have to leave.
He can’t believe there would ever come a day where he’s bargaining with an Aeon, but he supposes he can take even the most bizarre things in stride.
Clearing his throat, he continues. “And there are friends who would meddle, who’d stick their noses into things that shouldn’t concern them if I don’t give them a believable reason why they won’t be seeing me for a long time.”
Sampo’s stalling, and he knows it, but he also knows that he’s making arguably good points. There’s always a process to go through before a Masked Fool exits stage left, and Sampo can argue that he’s just going by the book.
More confidently, this time. “So give me a month, and I’ll—”
“Three days.”
A pause.
Sampo can audibly hear his hope shatter along with his heart. “I—I beg your pardon?”
“You have three days,” Aha rumbles in laughter, in a joke Sampo isn’t let in on, the sound ringing hollow in Sampo’s shell of a soul. “You do not need to concern yourself with boring things such as coming up with reasons.”
Sampo’s brain doesn’t even register the fact that he’s being lifted off the stage by his strings, a soulless puppet that dangles limply at the mercy of his unpredictable Aeon.
He comes face-to-face with the gigantic mask that is Aha’s face, and any wisp of fighting spirit left in him dissipates like a trail of smoke.
“Jarilo-VI’s reality of its last six years will be rewritten to one without Sampo Koski in it,” cackles Aha, as if this is the best thing they’ve ever come up with in millenias since their attempt in putting sentience onto a single worm. “People whose lives you’ve brushed with will no longer recall your presence, as any proof of your existence in Belobog will simply be erased.”
Erased.
In three days, not a single soul in Belobog would even realize he existed.
And frankly, Sampo’s ran out of tears.
Instead, a bubble of laughter comes out of his lungs, the sound harsh as if he’s punched in the chest—a terrible, battered sound of a person with shattered dreams.
“Why,” Sampo whispers, not even sounding like a question. Dry heaves are coming out of him now, each exhale a violent tremor in his airway.
“A warning,” Aha replies simply, mirth lacing their voice. “And a reminder. That I will never run out of ways to make boring things fun again.”
“Fuck you,” Sampo says without thinking, solemnly, his contempt outweighing both his fear and grief in a brief burst of rage.
If it were another Aeon, he surely wouldn’t be alive and breathing the second those words came out of his mouth. Actually, Sampo would like that, at this point. A swift mercy over whatever fate he’s just been assigned to.
But this is Aha, so instead, Sampo is just graced with an amused little laugh.
Comically large scissors materialize out of nothing, and a third hand comes out of the inky darkness to grasp it. The slender blades glint under the bright stage lights, parting in a cold, metallic resolve.
Sampo watches as the hand descends, the blades meeting the strings holding him up a few feet up in the air in a muted snip. His right arm is the first one freed from its binds, and then his left arm followed simultaneously by his left leg. He feels his weight fall limply forward until he’s upside down, like the hanged man tarot card he’d once pulled in a distant planet.
Aha swings him with the remaining thread that bound Sampo’s leg to their index finger, swaying him left and right like a sick mockery of a pendulum. Their red mask smiles at him, like it always does, but Sampo almost swears he sees the corners of its mouth curl impossibly wider.
“I will see you in three days, my child,” they rumble with a ring of finality. “I’ll come and personally escort you out of Qlipoth’s miserable little planet. So until then...”
The hand holding the scissors once again moves with otherworldly grace, coming in to sever the last of Sampo’s strings and liberate him from his agony.
“...I bid you farewell.”
The final puppet string snaps.
And Sampo falls, and falls, and falls, lifeless and succumbing to the pull of gravity.
And then he falls back awake, jolting upright on his rickety bed in his dilapidated safe house, fervently panting as if he was a drowned man taking in his first gasps of air.
Cold sweat trickles down his back, his forehead, dribbling onto his lips, and he can’t tell the difference between the taste of it and the salt of his tears.
The invitation letter stares back at him from between his fingers, and Sampo rips it apart with a ghastly wail until it turns into a burst of mock confetti.
The heels of Sampo’s palms dig into his eyes as he harshly rubs on them, before pulling his legs closer and curling into himself, tucking his face between his knees.
“Fuck.”