Chapter Text
Regret defined his days.
D3rlord3 should have never turned left, should have stayed curious, should have ran out of that cave while he still had his wits about him.
Now, every memory, every detail, and every moment that could have ever existed remained burned into D3rlord3’s eyelids forever. As was the faulty nature of the human mind, the most horrific of truths tended to stick out in his memory; things that nobody mortal should have ever been privy to. Things that kept him awake as he attempted sleep on the cold, packed dirt of forest floors.
Reality seemed only a pinprick as he trudged through the caves, retracing his steps. He was convinced he’d go mad— and maybe he did, for a while— until one day he blinked and found himself standing unsteadily in that abandoned village once again.
The cobweb-dusted homes stared back at him, their streets silent, wood dry and slowly rotting. Down here in the caves, it was completely silent.
D3rlord3’s legs ached, his back sore from carrying his belongings for so long. He turned to squint at his true destination: the single, abandoned home on the outskirts of the village.
It seemed the only place fitting for a man like him.
—-
He made the decrepit house his own easily enough. He slotted his belongings— sword, metals, paper, seeds, spare cloak— into shelves and piles. Dusted off the sheets from the bed. Scared the mice out from under the furniture.
It was weird to move into a new house but already know every detail of it. No room was unfamiliar to him, no quirk foreign. He knew why the single floorboard by the stairs squeaked— the builder years ago installed the plank too loosely. He knew why dust settled on one shelf the most often— it was in the path of a draft from the window.
Despite the curse bestowed upon him, he had to learn to live again: a bitter joke from the universe.
Slowly, and as shaky as life was nowadays, his days’ habits began to slot into something familiar:
Every morning, he would awake to silence, and drag himself out of bed, garbing himself in his armor before scraping together the appetite to eat something. He would explore more of the massive cave (not that there was much to discover. Nothing was new to him.) and pick at his meager crop garden, inevitably getting his cloak stuck in some brambles. More than once a week, he would make the trip back to the room with the wall of cyphered text, just to read the poem to himself again.
Even without the universe’s knowledge engrained with him, he likely still would have been able to recite the coded words by heart. It was an odd feeling, to retrace his steps back when he was dumb and curious, and just following a puzzle. Or so he thought.
Back at home, every evening he would unfasten his armor pieces and polish the metal until his hands were sore, even when it didn’t need polishing. It gave him something to do. He would eat an early dinner and lay in bed in darkness until sleep took him.
In between everything he did, D3rlord3 struggled to keep a reign on his mind. His thoughts was always wandering, always elsewhere, running along grooves of endless information, near-infinite. Routines kept him somewhat grounded to reality.
Naturally, he came to relish those handful of seconds every morning in bed, when he could blink tiredly up at the ceiling, still half-asleep and his thoughts blissfully empty. A few seconds of calm before his mind was invaded by every fact, past and present.
Otherwise, his thoughts never seemed to stop buzzing.
----
It was evening— or at least he assumed so, given the lack of sunlight— and D3rlord3 was finishing polishing his armor, getting ready for another evening of wallowing in self-pity. As was typical.
He stared at his own tired reflection in the surface of his knight’s helmet, sighing. He considered it an ironic joke that this was his daily garb— a knight’s attire. He was running a hand through the weathered red plume when he heard it.
A knock at the door.
D3rlord3 was on his feet in an instant, helmet back on his head. No other sound could have struck as much fear into his heart— This was surely impossible. Nobody could have possibly made the trip all the way down here. Nobody could have tracked him down.
His hands tightened to fists, eyes on the window as he tried to catch a glimpse of who or what was at his door. He couldn’t see a thing from this angle.
The knock at the door repeated, more impatient this time.
D3rlord3, preparing for the worst, slowly crossed over to it. One, firm hand gripped the doorknob and steeled for a fight as he swung the door open.
…And that thought was abandoned as soon as he saw who his visitor was.
Even with his stores of near-infinite knowledge, D3rlord3 was not prepared for the sight that awaited him when he answered his front door:
On his doorstep stood a scrappy-looking young man in a Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and a beaming smile. In his hand was D3rlord3’s hastily-written book.
The man, still smiling, tilted his head and asked, “Did you write this?”
D3rlord3 said nothing. He was staring at the book— he remembered scribbling his warnings out so fast, and assumed he’d never see it again. This must be the man who found it in the chest.
He was hoping his helmet concealed enough of his shocked expression.
The man— the damn man dressed in cargo shorts— took D3rlord3’s silence in stride, casually continuing on as if he were talking to a friend and not an armored stranger. “I’m only asking, ‘cause, well, I found it in this mine, and I really don’t know how it got there. Like, at all. It said all this stuff about crossroads, and turning left. Er, not turning left, to be specific.”
He tilted his head as he tried to search D3rlord3’s helmeted face for any kind of expression. He was failing.
“Did I come at a bad time? I can go, you know. Or come back another time. I’m flexible like that. I just assumed you wrote it, since you’re the only other person I’ve found down here, and these crossroads you mentioned are prob’ly down here somewhere, too. I mean, I almost wanted to go and check it out for myself—”
In a heartbeat, panic flared, and the man didn’t even have time to flinch— D3rlord3’s armored hand shot out, grabbing the front of his shirt and shoving him back against the doorframe, holding him there as if he weighed nothing. His helmet stopped an inch from the man’s wide-eyed expression.
D3rlord3 seethed, “Do not.”
Anyone with half a brain cell would have gotten the message loud and clear. Unfortunately, this mystery man was evidently an idiot.
Even at the hands of an armor-clad knight shoved against a doorframe with barely a breath of personal space, he had the audacity to smirk. “So he speaks.”
The man’s eyes were searching D3rlord3’s helmet fruitlessly for any hint of his expression. Good thing that he couldn’t, since D3rlord3 wasn’t entirely sure he was doing a good job of covering up his utter shock.
Perhaps the one upside of his otherwise regrettable curse of knowledge was that it made away with the need for introductions: he knew everything about this guy already, just like he knew everything else.
This was Avery, who received D3rlord3’s warning in his book and for some damned reason still decided to seek him out. And succeeded, at that.
D3rlord3 did not loosen his grip one bit. “I wrote that message to warn fools like you,” he said stiffly.
“Right,” said the man— Avery— who was starting to look a bit uncomfortable. “I figured. Um, hey, just a note: you’re wrinkling my shirt.”
He was literally at the hands of a golden-armored knight, and his main concern was getting wrinkles in his Aloha shirt. D3rlord3 had to bite back the urge to scoff.
Following a dumbfounded pause, D3rlord3 eventually let go of Avery’s shirt collar and dropped him back on the doorstep. He watched as he smoothed out the front of his shirt with his palm. “Way to manhandle a guy you just met. Anyway, now that that’s over,” he said, straightening, then extending a hand. “it’s nice to meet you, mister…?”
He trailed off, stupidly expecting D3rlord3 to offer up his name. He did not.
D3rlord3 stared down at his hand as if he were being offered a dead animal. “I’m not one for making acquaintances.”
Avery shrugged and retracted his hand. “Okay, I can roll with that. Well, my name is—”
“—Avery,” D3rlord3 said in his stead, snatching the name from his mind easily. “I know.”
Avery snapped his mouth shut. And though his voice seemed to lose some of it's ease, D3rlord3 could see that spark of curiosity in Avery’s eyes only grow. “Huh. Okay. Uh, not gonna lie, that’s… um, a little creepy. How’d you know that?”
D3rlord3 wouldn’t dare humor this guy with a reply.
“Not much for talking, I see. Okay. Sure. You had a lot to say in this ol’ book, though. I’m a little curious about it, mystery man,” he said, then peered over D3rlord3’s shoulder to better glimpse the interior of his house. “Maybe we could talk inside? I gotta say, nice crib. Real vintage. Can I come in?”
He did not quit that shit-eating grin. D3rlord3 was considering if it would be a moral dilemma to strangle this guy.
When D3rlord3 didn’t reply— too busy wondering where this guy got the nerve— Avery tilted his head. “Okay, I’ll take that as a no.”
“What do you want?” D3rlord3 spat.
Avery raised his hands in an I-surrender gesture. “I just had some questions. Your book wasn’t exactly very detailed. Like, for example, where even is this crossroad?”
“Be grateful that you’re ignorant enough to even ask that question.”
Awe dawned on his face. “Gosh, you even talk like a knight, too. Did you really find the crossroads yourself? And that big, weird forest with the lake?”
“Listen to me very, very carefully,” D3rlord3 said, stepping closer, lowering his voice as he aimed to intimidate. “Whatever questions you have, whatever curiosity you’re holding, whatever naive little dreams of exploration you have--” He planted his palms firmly on Avery’s shoulders. “End it now. Do not go looking for anything you should not lay eyes on.”
Avery was staring very pointedly at the two, armor-clad hands on his shoulders, looking a little distracted. “Gosh, you’re strong.” He then looked up at his helmed face again, trying and failing to find his eyes. “So, you’re not gonna tell me what’s down the left side of the crossroads?”
From behind the helmet, D3rlord3 set his jaw. “You shouldn’t ask questions you’re not prepared to receive answers to.”
Avery shrugged his hands off of his shoulders. “Well, how do I know if I won’t like the answer if I don’t know what the answer even is? C’mon,” he coaxed, much like an impatient toddler. “Just tell me, and I’ll be on my way.”
“No. Leave this place,” D3rlord3 said, and began to shut the door when Avery stuck out a foot to keep it from closing completely.
He sighed as Avery pushed the door open again with his foot, a lopsided smile tugging at his lips. D3rlord3 sighed, but didn’t push the door closed again. His hand lingered on the doorknob for a long moment before he dropped it to his side.
At that moment, it dawned on D3rlord3 that this was the first real conversation he’d had with another human being in a very, very long time. A pity it had to be such an annoying one.
Avery went on, “Oh, come on. You can’t just write something like that and not expect me to be curious. You wrote it, like, a billion times in a row. Look,” Avery said, and flipped open the book. “‘At the crossroads don’t ‘durn’ left’!”
He didn’t quite have the energy to put any real bite behind his words. “I was on the brink of madness. Do not make fun of my spelling mistakes.”
Avery’s eyes lit up, and he snapped the book shut. “Madness, you say?”
D3rlord3 shut his eyes. He’d said too much.
“So, what was down there?” Avery questioned on. “What did you see when you turned left? It made you go mad?”
“I meant that warning with my life,” D3rlord3 insisted. “You do not want to know.”
“I know you meant it. I’m following it, promise, and I won’t go looking for it.”
“Do you promise?”
“I swear! I just want you to tell me what’s down there.” He bounced on his tiptoes excitedly. “At least tell me how you knew my name!” When he still didn’t reply, Avery resorted to pleading, “Please, Mr. Knight? Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell m—”
D3rlord3 shut the door in his face, cutting him off.
He had been ready to end that conversation about five minutes ago, in all honesty. D3rlord3 sighed, trying to grapple with that entire encounter. In fairness, his routine had never, ever gone unbroken before today. No one had ever showed up on his doorstep and gotten on his nerves. He wasn’t sure whether to thank or throttle the man for it.
Then he heard Avery’s voice again, muffled behind shut door. “Okay, well, I’ll be back tomorrow! I promise! So, you’d better be home! ‘Kay, bye now!”
D3rlord3 sighed for the umpteenth time. He had a feeling he wasn’t lying about that.