Titter, tat, tat.
A light gray slice of paper was being imprinted upon, the long stretching quill that'd been doing the writing tapping along the paper, spotted in ink that was pooled in a nearby glass container.
Rowan's arm stretched to the paper's edges as his hand hastily etched each syllable, the words and their meanings accumulating in a way that he felt most at home.
After a couple seconds, he retracted his arm, setting the quill down to look upon his finished work, short as it was.
"Hm... I think I like this one," he said, crossing his arms but still looking on with a hidden unease in his eyes.
He hadn't felt the same warmth that enveloped his body when his ultimate poem was finished, and he couldn't encapsulate the high he typically associated with his completed works.
But good enough was the general consensus his mind had come to, dozens of other unfolded papers scattered to the left and right of where he'd been writing.
"Well, I think that's enough for tonight," he said, stretching his arms out as he looked back to where his bed lay.
The furnishment of this world was far more decorative than anything he'd been used to, the walls of the room extending further than some houses do, each donned with golden chains, matte black padding, and animal heads while neatly dividing up the decorations into dedicated sections that conveyed the sense that each ornament and trinket was of equal importance.
There were some things unfamiliar to him such as confetti-like strings overhanging the ceiling with a bright purple hue, but he could generally put his finger on what their intended purpose was.
The air surrounding the thin strands was deepened with the same magenta that enshrouded Nezethar's room--although not of the same quantity--and yet, a fruity smell likened Rowan's mind to imaginings of life in an amazon filled with flora and harvest.
"Ahhh~" he sighed as his body fell into the mattress like the sloshing of a water bed, except not nearly as wet. The light material gave way to his weight, replicating the sensation of falling to the floor, but it maintained the right balance between firm and soft, stiffening just before his body steeped into an uncomfortable spot.
He looked at the pillows just north of where his head rested, but he didn't immediately shoot for them, feeling that with the mattress alone, he could fall right asleep.
Fighting back against the warm embrace of slumber, he rolled over his right shoulder to move just a little past where his blankets rested, sluggishly bending his knees to effectively pull them over his body.
Resting his head on the equally soft pillows, he closed his eyes to drift off into the air, the world's black instantly contrasted with the white of clouds pulling and propelling his body upwards towards the sky.
Gravity was but a figment of the mind as Rowan freely released his limbs from his control, echoes of a long day past finally expelled from the back of his mind--his worries lifting with him towards the endless heavens.
Knock, knock, knock!
The clouds below him fwished into the distance to leave just him, gravity's acceleration not yet taking effect.
Slowly, he began to fall, the whirring of wind only picking up the closer and closer he got to the endless void beneath him.
He yelled out in anguish, eyes snapping open as his sweet dream erupted into chaos from the random impulse resounding from his door.
He felt his retinas burn just a tiny bit from the sudden shift between dark and bright, the purple wriggling its way into his skull, but it wasn't anything a few rubs couldn't fix.
What really grabbed his attention was the person behind the door who'd been turning its knob.
"Rowan!" They yelled, bursting their way into his room while he repositioned himself a bit more upright so he could look at them head on.
Rowan was surprised at the perpetrator, but a slight smile eased his expression as he brought his hands down to allow his eyes to adjust on their own.
It was Liora, her hair fraying every which way. Similarly, her breath was disorganized, her chest rising for ragged, uneven breaths with quickness several times greater than was normal, eyes wide with visible concern.
"Liora...?"
"Rowan, are you okay!? I knocked on your door, but as I did, you yelled out at the top of your lungs," she asked, stepping forward toward where Rowan was resting.
"Yeah, I'm fine. You just startled me, is all."
Liora raised one eyebrow, her lips shut tight for a few moments too long for comfort.
"Really? If you say so..." she responded--almost disbelieving--as she turned her head to her right, the disorganized papers grabbing her attention. "Hey, what's that there?"
"Oh, ah, those are just some poems I was writing. Just a little past-time for me, you know? It helps me fall asleep easier as well, so I thought that it wouldn't hurt to write a couple."
Rowan turned to allow his legs to hang from the bed's mattress, slowly putting weight on them as he propped himself up onto the hard floor. His limbs were moving a tad bit slower than usual, but he simply told himself to shake it off.
"A couple...? It looks like you wrote a whole lot more than that," she chuckled while running her fingers through the many scattered papers, so numerable that they had to be stacked to fit on the desk.
"Haha, well, I could write a whole lot more than that back on earth, especially since I lived by myself for so long with plenty of free-time on my hands."
Rowan's laugh was quickly cut short with an awkward sigh as Liora looked up at him with a questioning look, her hands fidgeting beneath her collar before she turned her eyes a few inches to the right to avoid eye contact.
"Um--well, ah, anyway, what're you doing here?" Rowan inquired, hurriedly switching topics while scratching the back of his scalp.
"Oh, uhm..."
Liora's face squelched, tilting down as if the floor had the answer she seeked.
"Why, yes, I came here to talk to you about what happened earlier!" She yelled with her finger pointing upwards, the imaginary lightbulb so prominent that for a second, Rowan could see it himself.
"What do you mean?" Rowan asked, his brows drawing inward.
"I mean, the light inside Nezethar's room lit brighter than any of the others, and then suddenly, everything went boom!" She responded, her palms wagging in the air before steadily shifting outward to mimic the growing explosion. "Nobody wanted to tell any of us what went on. And I mean, you were kind of just sitting there, silent."
Rowan looked up for a moment, thinking on past events before everybody was escorted to their rooms.
"Hm... well, after the king came to escort us back--"
"No, I mean what went on inside the room!"
Rowan threw his shoulders back a little bit at Liora's interjection, but his face didn't show any signs of frustration or annoyance--although his fists were tightened a tad bit more than he'd meant.
He simply stared back at Liora, the narrow of his eyelids shrinking while he fought against the urge to break eye contact.
"Wait, hold on, you don't have to tell me what your prophecy was. I just meant what went on to cause her to look so... detached." She added, the space between her nose and mouth enlarged as she shook her hands as if she were trying to shake out her nerves.
"Yeah, I get what you mean. The way she'd been so pompous before made the graying of her hair even more peculiar. I still don't really know what happened." He said, looking down while touching his chin with his thumb and index finger. "Although... I believe I may have an inkling..."
The thought unsettled Rowan more than he'd let on, but with Liora's curious expression, he was sure that she hadn't caught on.
"And what is that?" She asked, inching towards Rowan even more.
A single drop of sweat ran down along his nape as his chin angled closer to his neck to the point that it was touching his Adam's apple, but he swerved his hands up between himself and Liora, signaling her to calm down a little bit.
She looked down at herself and over at Rowan, her body and face mere inches away from his. Speedily, she retraced her steps back to where she'd originally been standing, awkwardly posturing herself to a more natural position.
"Well, I'm not sure if this is really an answer to your question, but when she'd given my reading, there were some voices overlapping with hers... as if another individual--or even individuals--had taken over her or shared her body."
Liora looked up, one side of her face raising in even greater confusion than before Rowan had answered.
"Overlapping?"
"Yes, although they were kind of indistinguishable, like if a bunch of people were to speak in your ear all at once. Regardless, it was only when she mentioned that there were too many voices that her reading began to fall apart, the spirits escaping the scene as if her very being repulsed them."
There was an inexplicable silence, although not nearly as awkward as it should've felt.
Rowan thought of refocusing the topic, but looking on at Liora ponder on his words, he felt it best to wait for her response first.
"Hm... well, if what you say is true, then there may be something different about you." She said, looking back up towards Rowan and then down towards the side of his hip with an added light in her eyes. "Actually, speaking of being different, you got that wordless grimoire of yours there. Do you think it might have something to do with this?"
Rowan stared down at a long forgotten relic holstered to his hip despite there being no pouch by his side that everyone else seemed to don, but the other heroes were the same way, their respective grimoires floating alongside them, free of will.
Pulling on it, he opened its pages, the same unnerving feeling of emptiness forcing him to clasp its cover and squeeze it between the inside of his elbow and armpit over his chest.
"I haven't really thought about it, but perhaps that might be the case. I forgot to mention it, but Nezethar was talking about me being an echo, and those words resounded with me. Not because my personality is akin to an echo, but because of this book. When I stare into it, there's an inundation of information and a void of presence or content all at once. It's a tangible contradiction, the thoughts in my head losing their meaning and being spat back out at me in pure, raw... essence."
The word hovered over him for a few moments before he could force it out, trembling between his teeth as the same eerie presence the grimoire had extended from its pages to his chest.
"I can't really understand what you're talking about, but if your grimoire is as scary as you make it out to be, why are you gripping onto it so tightly right now?"
Rowan's gaze shot down, gawking at his hold over the book. Before, he'd been using one hand, but now his second reached for the bottom of its cover, his grasp so tight that he could hear the friction between the book's leather and his skin.
He threw the book away, its freefall to the floor cut short by a glowing white light that enveloped its surface before it changed positions, the book teleporting back to his hip with its same hovering animation.
"I-I-I didn't mean to..." He exclaimed, his face shot with fear.
"Huh, well it looks like the two of you are one in the same."
The blue in Rowan's face dissipated as he looked back towards Liora, now smiling at him while showing her pearly white teeth.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that in the same way that the grimoire refuses to speak to you the knowledge it possesses--the same way mine and the other heroes' do--yet still clings on to you, you refuse to acknowledge the grimoire for being yours, yet you cling on to it."
Liora raised her right hand as she said this, the grimoire floating alongside it as her finger pointed toward the ceiling. Her eyes widened to reveal a resonant white, its aura reaching out to cover her pupils.
Suddenly, a familiar green shot out from the tip of her finger, its roaring velocity instantly cut short as Liora's eyes twitched with strain to develop a more restrained waterfall of warm energy.
Some of the aura strayed to touch Rowan's limbs, the warmth concealing minor aches he'd developed by walking around all day.
"You see, this grimoire here has taught me its insights. It's almost like we have been together for life, our understandings mutual and our feelings synched." She said as she snuggled her grimoire, small purple pulses emanating from it to mimic a purr.
While Liora was smiling, Rowan only looked down in disappointment, his gaze averted towards the windows of his room that revealed parts of the royal garden.
"Oh--uh, I didn't mean to gloat, I just meant that the relationship between you and your grimoire is special! Please, believe me..."
Rowan could only laugh in response to her embarrassment, the flush in her cheeks a cute gesture more than anything.
"Please, I know you meant well. I just thought that it's nice you get to have a better time than I'm having right now in this world. It's better that I'm the one that is the defect than you, someone who's so vibrant and outgoing."
"No, you mustn't talk about yourself like that! You know, you're really great too..."
The room was silent again, the stillness of their limbs making the quiet far more harrowing than it should've been.
However, what they felt wasn't discomfort, but, rather, a tension within them that neither wished to leave.
Their eyes narrowed, the breathiness of their exhales touching upon each other's face.
Their faces began to inch closer, the plump of Liora's lip sticking out more as if in ready anticipation for contact.
Rowan immediately cut in, opening his eyes in realization and laying his hand on Liora's shoulder, widening the gap between them at the same time.
"Hah ha, well, I think it's about time we go to sleep."
Liora was visibly frustrated at his retaliation, but her gaze was rested on Rowan's grimoire, thrumming with an extremely faint pulse of white.
She ignored it, however, once she'd seen that Rowan didn't notice it, believing the surge in energy to just be her imagination.
"Okay then. Good night, Rowan."
Turning around with a bluntness in both her prose and posture, she faced towards the door without looking back at Rowan once.
Before she stopped to turn its knob, however, she turned towards Rowan's desk once more, looking down at its papers just for a single moment's glance.
"By the way, that poem in the center there's my favorite."
As her figure disappeared behind the shut door, Rowan stepped forward towards his work desk, touching upon the poem she mentioned.
"The brilliance of her purple hair, dashing even amongst the others, the illumination of her personality, touching the heart like a butterfly's flutter." He read aloud, his face turning more and more pale the further along he got. "Well, damn, I really screwed up there, didn't I?"
As his limbs went taut with regret, his grimoire flew up to his face as its covers flung apart, the first page receiving engravings that floated in the air and landed as permanent marks.
The grimoire suddenly lit up with a vibrant hue, its light easily overpowering the purple flying out from the thin strands lacing the corners between the ceiling and walls of the room.
"What..."