Lionhearts ||Skephalo||

47

Skeppy turns his gaze away from the dancing lights, feeling bile rise up his throat. He gags softly, and Fundy glances at him, confused. Tubbo stares up at the mesmerizing sight, clearly awestruck.

"What are they?" He asks softly, looking up to Fundy. The shifter studies Skeppy for a second longer, and then replies,

"They're northern lights, Aurora Borealis. Unless you mean the snow."

Skeppy tears his gaze from the ground, hand pressed firmly over his mouth, and stares into the lights, trying to tear apart why he feels so uneasy, so inexplicably horrified by what should be a mysterious but beautiful sight.

The lights wind around each other, light blue mixing with red, bleeding into each other and forming a purple band in the middle. The tips of the ribbons bleach to white, stark against the dark sky. All around them, the snowflakes seem to catch the color and light, glowing like bits of stardust.
To Tubbo, it must seem like a scene straight out of a fairytale. To Fundy, it's probably beautiful.

But as hard as he tries, Skeppy can't quell his nausea at the sight of the lights.

He stares through the curtain, to the sky beyond, and then squeezes his eyes shut tightly.

I'm just imagining things, he tries to reason. It's just northern lights, we're in the northern mountain ranges now...right?

Something begins to click.

"It's not the right time of year for these, is it?" He says slowly, "And we're...in a eastern mountain range. They usually don't happen in this region."

Fundy tilts his head, glancing up to the lights for another second.

"You're not wrong."

Tubbo stares intently into the light. He clearly feels nothing like Skeppy does.

"Isn't it a little...odd? Don't you feel a bit off-put by this?" Skeppy prods. Fundy shrugs nonchalantly. Noncommittal, waiting for his reasoning.

"Not particularly. It's a bit out of season, sure, but nothing to be so...pale, over," he remarks, noting the other's pallor. Skeppy scoffs.

"You two seriously don't feel ill looking at them? Those are bad fucking omens dude. I'm telling you. Gut instinct." His tone takes an exasperated color, and he turns to stalk back towards the embassy doors.

Exhaustion was already causing his body to ache, as though he had been up far longer than he had, by the time his head hits the pillow next to Sapnap, nestling close to his friend, who instinctively sneezes when Skeppy brushes his nose.

What's so wrong about a couple of lights? He grumbles internally, closing his eyes. He reaches out as he drifts off, searching for Bad.
And finds nothing, only palmfuls of black, copper-scented sand that falls through his fingers to the void below.

He's not there.

Where's Bad?

* * *

Philza adjusts his position, leaning closer to his fire for a moment.

Wilbur floats anxiously back into the main area of the campsite, insistently stuttering out in his quiet, crackly voice,

"Phil, th-th-there, there's something wrong. I can feel i-it."

Phil glances towards the sky instinctively, searching for any Phantoms. As he does so, he catches a glimpse of something in the far distant heavens, a rippling band of light.
His stomach drops, and he nods in reply to his son's insistent statement. If the otherworldly glow wasn't enough to cement his belief in what Wilbur was saying, the howls of wolves somewhere not too far away from them would be.