untitled

TBN was used to being a puppet; a vessel. Generally, it didn't have a will of its own, and whatever brief moments of lucidity it had were more often than anything spent conducting the will of its Creator.

TBN sat there for a while; waiting for input, for lack of a better term. Waiting for its Creator to exert some sort of will upon it, to give it something to do, some course of action to pursue.

Nothing came.

It half had the urge to tap its foot impatiently, but didn't follow through. It hadn't been that long, all things considered; a few minutes? Ten, maybe? Apparently, a good sense of time was a trait that none of the Creator's vessels had been gifted with. Regardless, it was longer than TBN had ever gone while lucid without recieving any input from its Creator.

"Hey, are you alright?"

TBN blinked. Its surroundings, as if in a video game running on hardware too slow for its own good, abruptly popped in, a rippling effect bringing the landscape into existence in chunks from its point of view. Whether it had just begun to process its surroundings, if it had been placed within yet another new world, or if the world had just been created that very moment, it wasn't sure. It looked up at the person talking to it. 

TBN saw a heterochromic-eyed, pure-white humanoid face staring back at it. Ah. Quarz. Another one of the Creator's vessels - safe to talk freely to, in that regard.

"You're just, uh, sitting there. Staring off into space. Are you having a moment? Do you need me to leave you alone for a bit, or ...?"

TBN abruptly stood up, causing Quarz to step back in surprise, his glitchy aura flaring up for a moment.

Quarz looked at it, silent. "Is... Is that a yes?" 

TBN looked at Quarz, drew a breath, and for the first time in a long time - perhaps the first time ever, certainly the first time it could remember - said something of its own volition.

"I -"

Or, it would have, if it hadn't started tearing up. Damnit, out of all the traits to inherit from the Creator, why did 'crying when experiencing any unexpected emotion' have to be one of them? When the creator wasn't controlling it, their influence still had to come through in the most inconvenient way possible. TBN covered its face with its arm, trying to either discreetly hide the tears or at least wipe them away.

"Ope- okay, uh, jeez, let's -" Quarz put an arm around TBN's shoulders - "hey, it's gonna be alright. You're okay. Do you wanna talk about it?"

TBN leaned into Quarz's half-hug slightly, taking a shaky breath and explaining, "I - th-the Creator isn't - uhm - usually they tell me what to do, yeah? And I just do it and I don't d- I don't do stuff myself, ever? But the creator isn't here- they aren't t- aren't telling me what to do anymore, and I - I don't know what's - did something happen, is- are they abandoning me, are they-"

"Woah, woah, slow down. Look, I'm not the Creator - well, I kind of am, but I'm not any more of the creator than you are and it doesn't matter right now anyway- but I can promise that they're not abandoning you. If they were, I'm pretty sure you'd just... Fade into nonexistence or something, not just show up in a place with other creations that are still in use, you know?"

"But why am I here, then, w-why am I not out somewhere else, doing something, where I'm supposed to be, that's my entire reason for having been made?"

Quarz shrugged. "Maybe they want me to give you a tutorial? Our jobs are pretty much the same, I think, it's just you also tell people the fundamental truth of the nature of their existence. Maybe they want me to give you a couple of pointers here and there - look, I couldn't really tell ya, and it's not like we could really ask the Creator themself for an expl-"

Out of nowhere, a light-blue post-it note popped into existence, then drifted down and landed on TBN's head. Generally, when the Creator wanted to send a direct message to their creations, rather than through the medium of a Vessel like Quarz or TBN, it'd be done like that. TBN sniffed - their breath was still shaky, and emotions were still running a little high, but they were mostly done crying now - and it took a look at the note, which simply read "ʙᴜɪʟᴅs ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ :3".

"Uhm, I'm pretty sure that's not - like that's never happened before, right? That's not just me, the Creator's never actually, like, sent us a note like this before." TBN asked, folding the note into halves just to have something to do with its hands.

"Oh, sure, it's never happened before. But now, it's just how that always happens. Gotta keep up that kayfabe, y'know? Go with the flow and all that."

"Right. Yeah. Never was great at that."

Quarz stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Yeah, breaking kayfabe is sorta your whole deal, huh? Brought in specifically to break some of those rules."

TBN nodded. "Uhm, I'll - I'll try my best, though. Not to break them, I mean."

"Sounds great! Do you wanna head back to the house, or do you want a moment to cool down a bit more first?"

"The house?"

"Yeah? The house, where all of the Creator's vessels and favorite little guys live when we're not out doing other stuff? Man, you really weren't clued into any of this, huh."

"W- well! I didn't have my own personality until about 5 minutes ago, okay?"

"Yeesh, yeah. What a way to start off, huh?"

"Man. I have a personality now? That's weird to say." TBN thought aloud, as they walked. "Saying anything on my own is weird, though. Oh god, am I gonna have to worry about staying in character?"

"I mean, I don't, and we're practically the same character. You're probably fine?"

"Right. Okay. Sounds good."

"Man, I can't wait for you to meet some of the other guys. Ruti's probably gonna be so excited to talk to you, if only cause he's always that way. Livid's also in a perpetual state of having just moved in, so you two should be able to relate there."

"What. Does that mean." TBN looked at Quarz with an air of pure befuddlement.

"It's - look, his canon already has him living somewhere else? It's complicated, and apparently this is how the Creator chose to resolve it. Anyway, who else ... Oh, have you met Otherside yet?"

"Ah... Yes, we've been acquainted. I... do not think he likes me very much."

Quarz laughed. "Yeah, he hates everyone, don't take it personally."

"Uh, good to know. So, is there like- is there room? Like, a spare room in this house or something I could take over?"

"You ever read House of Leaves, TBN?" Quarz asked.

TBN stared at him blankly. "... No...?"

"Me either. But apparently it's about this family that lives in this weird house, and sometimes doors just appear in places that shouldn't be physically possible that lead to other, new rooms? Anyway, it's like that."

"... Haunting," TBN said, with a slight chuckle and a bemused, concerned sort of half-smile.

"No, trust me, it's actually kind of super cool. A little inconvenient when we gotta move the couch for the 5th time because SOMEONE'S door got put right behind it, but otherwise cool."

TBN tried to hide a small smile. "I gotta admit, it's - now that I've calmed down a bit, this does seem... Kinda nice? Just hanging out in the downtime? Definitely wild, and gonna take some getting used to, but... Nice."

"Well," Quarz said, ruffling the other man's hair, "Glad to have ya with us."