“Did you know the gem would do that?” Eirin asked, colored eyes wide and expectant. It wasn’t rare for her to approach Ceres, but Elayne wasn’t entirely sure that it was something they should encourage. However, she could make her own decisions - he had no right to tell her to keep away from the showman. He just… felt weird when they spent time together, when they talked and he wasn’t a part of the conversation

He was hers.

But he couldn’t force her to be his.

Ceres smiled, the edges flailing false with every other word he spoke. “I had no idea! I’d heard that there was something that could do that, but I honestly just thought it would release a… a bat, or something.”

Eirin cocked her head, forehead squinched in thought. “They can do that?”

“Well, not often,” he admitted, before rummaging through the group’s loot bag. A rough, dark stone came out, held in his teeth. “This could do the same, or different, or even nothing at all! Do you want to see what I think it will do?”

She wriggled, expression almost puppy-ish. “I do, I do! Please show me Ceres - I was so very frightened by those thieves, I don’t think I’d be able to sleep right now! Maybe this will wear me out.”

Elayne visibly flinched, though he refused to acknowledge why, in part because he wasn’t actually sure. He felt Cere’s eyes on him, the edges of his eyes crinkled as though he knew something. Elayne bared his teeth, annoyed with himself from losing the calm indifference that permeated his body as though he were made of stone, until he saw Eirin’s eyes dart around to see what was slowing the show.

With a bow that brought her wavering attention back to him, Ceres said in a voice of quiet thunder, “Behold! From earth comes sky, from ground comes flight. Break your bonds, and show your might.” A poorly disguised exasperated huff burst from Elayne’s chest, but Ceres ignored it in favor of smashing the stone into a million pieces.

And nothing happened.

And more time passed.

“... What now?” Eirin finally said, still hoping to be distracted.

A rough squawk sounded behind her, and she jumped in surprise, turning quickly enough that she nearly tripped over her own feet. “Erno! When did you get here?” The crow ruffled his feathers, nearly purring with the attention while pretending to be cross. The cotton candy looked back at the blue smoke. “Was that you?”

And he offered another bow, staying low for a minute or so until she thought to stomp her feet in applause.

“What else?”

His laughter had a hint of gasp to it, an edge of what Elayne thought to call exasperation. “You’ve caught me unprepared, my dear. I haven’t prepared an encore.”

She pouted for a minute, disappointed, before sighing and shrugging it off. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing for it. Goodbye, Ceres.”

“Wait!” he called, a hint of desperation in his voice. “There’s a party trick I’ve never tried, and isn’t well prepared, and some have said that it could be ‘dangerous’, but I can show you that if you’d like?”

When she was a child, she wouldn’t have hesitated. She had been brave, and reckless, and foolish, and so very much alive. Waking Elayne had changed her, though no one else would admit it when she finally woke up, and she tended to take an extra breath before rushing into things. This time, though, she could feel Elayne’s sturdy presence behind her, hear Ceres’ hope in front, and it felt like nothing in the world could go wrong. “Okay! Show me what you got.”

The filigreed magician drew a circle, using small puffs of magic to light candles in an apparently specific pattern. Huh, Eirin thought to herself. That looks a surprising amount like the Harvester.

Just before he lit the last one, Crenia approached, her steps speeding up until she was running fast enough that her shouts were almost audible. Almost, almost - there. “STOP! What are you doing, you fool - just stop!” 

Ceres was so focused - or, more likely, had learned to tune out Crenia’s criticisms - that he didn’t even realize she was coming towards him until the last white candle was lit. He looked up with a smug grin, though seeing the heraldic before him shook his face a bit. “Hello, my dear. Come to enjoy the show?”

“What have you done?” she practically screamed in his face, face as pale as a face covered in hair could be. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

“Oh, well. I’m calling for a small creature to do a merry jig. I found my silly little thing-” apparently, he could occasionally be a bit affectionate to his pet slime - “doing something almost the same. I just used different candles!”

Crenia took a deep breath, refusing now to even look at him. “You absolutely idiot, you dangerous fool - you are doing it here, in the puzzle rooms. With white candles. In the shape of a grin. You’re summoning something else, something worse.”

He scoffed, ignoring the flutter in his heart that he’d actually screwed something up. “Are you saying that I’m invoking the Skull?”

Her purple eyes finally stared at him, unblinking, unhurried, and endlessly disappointed. “And then you said its name. And now we all have to live with the consequences.”