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theorememes2026-01-03 07:00 am
TDM #2, arc 1.2: as she bends toward the sun
I sing for you and me
I sing across the sky
To find a place of life
Where all of this is true
I bring this into you❞
BUFF
For those who are bonded to the Fathomless, they will, one night, wake up from a startling dream in which they remembered a memory they had forgotten, or had glossed over.
DEBUFF
Bonded of the Empty Machine will experience insatiable hunger this month, and will never feel satisfied no matter how much they eat.
At first, you feel a pull. In which direction, you do not know. When a portal of shimmering black and glittering stars appears in front of you, it only seems natural to step into it. On the journey, it is as if you see everything: ancient galaxies wheeling through space, cultures born and growing and leaving their planets, lights creeping over landmasses and them winking out all at once. You see the hungry arm of a black hole, an enigmatic smile under a mirrored mask, a fist clenched tight around an endless sword. Fangs shining in starlight, bandaged feet that have traveled so many miles and still remain sturdy, and code shattering under titanium will.
And then your feet touch solid ground again, and what you have seen is suddenly hard to recall, the merest of glimpses springing to mind when you try to think back.
All you know is that you witnessed something enormous, something you probably shouldn't have seen.
As you struggle to refocus your gaze, all you see for a long moment is white. White walls, white floor. Narrow white cots lined up against a wall, screens blinking above them in tones of soothing aqua and mint. You are in a medbay — a highly advanced one, given the lack of bulky machinery — but perhaps the most eye-catching thing about the room is a long window showing endless black and twinkling stars outside.
Before you can give voice to any thoughts, a small robot flutters toward you, and perches on the back of a chair. "Hello, Wayfarer!" the birdform chirps cheerfully. "I imagine you must have many questions; allow me to enlighten you! You have fallen victim to a quantum accident and have been pulled to another universe, but the Ascendants, in their generosity, intercepted your signal and brought you here so that you did not wind up in empty space. You are aboard the Theorem of the Astral Rose; our mission is to explore uncharted space and search for the Song!"
They pause, thinking, their little blue eye aglow, and then brighten.
"Oh! Introductions are in order! I am Starling's Lament in Flight, but you may call me Starling's Lament. I am one of the Hosts of this exploration vessel; we will do everything we can to ensure a safe voyage for you. Unfortunately, at this moment, we cannot send you home. The Ascendants have indicated that their search for the Song may play some key role in doing so." They whistle a merry tune. "Please enjoy your stay! The other Wayfarers are currently on planet Epsilon-355, you may join them at any time!"
And so, you take a shuttle down to the planet; an orb of a nearly unbroken gold landmass and pale pink clouds scudding across the surface. On the journey, the pilot Host recites for you why this planet was picked: it is a possible match for a planet mentioned in a story about the Last Pilgrim, one of the most enigmatic of the Edicts. If there are scraps of the Song to be found, it may be in the path they traveled there.
PLANET TYPE: arid world
ORBITAL CHARACTERISTICS: close orbit to native sun, no eccentricities in orbit
ROTATION PERIOD: 31 hour days, 405 day year
NATURAL RESOURCES: iron-rich silicate, limonite, titanium oxides, sodium, nickel
BREATHABLILITY INDEX: safe for humanoid respiration
WEATHER PATTERNS: occasional sandstorms, very little rain
LANDMASS: 98% of planet
AVERAGE TEMPERATURE: 31c
SURFACE GRAVITY: average
BIOSIGNATURES: indicates a narrow range of native life
ARTIFICIAL STRUCTURES: none found
On-planet, activity is bustling.
Research & Archives pinpointed a clue in the story that would make finding the Last Pilgrim's trail easier to find: a pathway of bones that the caravan traveled upon. It is unknown how long this pathway is, or even if it still exists, depending on how long ago that story came from.
Science & Engineering, meanwhile, concluded that the golden sand of this planet is wholly unlike the sand of other deserts, made up of not just silicon dioxide and fossilized marine life, but of many inert chemicals and minerals, a scattered rainbow of compositions. Epsilon-355 was, they concluded, at one point the closest planet to its sun, and that has sown a strange field upon it: the golden ash and viscera of a star's fiery tempest and the powdered remains of a destroyed moon. It is, quite literally, made from stardust and moondust. The glass that litters the sands was put there by chaotic lashings of star plasma, whips of heat so intense they penetrated through the atmosphere and raised burned lines of melted sand over its surface. Luckily, the orbit of the planet has since taken it too far away from its star to do such damage again.
After long-range scans, Wayfarers were able to find signs that pointed to a large deposit of inert biological material that lay to the north-west.
As you pack up your camp, the weather is clear, and the sky is bright. For most Wayfarers, adjusting to the 31-hour cycle of Epsilon-355 has been difficult, but midday naps and staggered sleeping schedules have made it easier. The sand has proven to be a constant irritant when the breeze picks up, but the creatures largely prefer to hide, and there have been no more sightings of the barren-racers. It seems they travel only alongside the sand-whales, and the sand-whales only emerge after a storm.
With all of your supplies stocked on people's backs and the hover-sleds the Hosts have brought for easier travel, you set off to the north-west.
After the storm, the glass outcroppings had been scrubbed clear, and they still remain that way. The path north-west takes you through something of a valley, bordered on both sides by sharp juts of the glass, enormous spikes just waiting to impale anybody who sets a foot wrong. As Wayfarers move through this valley, the reflections feel like they are watching you, but you can never quite catch any coherent image in them outside of your own selves.
Until, that is, you happen to glance at another, and see a vision of something you regret. A past action you took, a decision you made, a fate you changed. It's a static image, like a photograph reflected in the glass's surface, and it does not fade when somebody else looks at it.
They all remain like specters lining the path you are taking, watching your every move.
After two days of travel, you find them.
At first, the Wayfarers find the trail of bones mentioned in the scrap of story you're following. It is just as described: a pathway of enormous bones, presumably of the last titans the story refers to. They are neatly laid in a winding pathway over and between the rolling sand dunes, bleached white by sand and time. Most of them are meters long: humerus bones three meters long lining the path like a border, rib bones twice as tall as a person creating elegant fan shapes.
On the side of the path, greater remains may occasionally be seen. Enormous titanic skeletons half-buried in the sand, watching the pathway, like they simply laid down and died as eternal sentinels.
Astute observers notice that the skulls are all pointed in the same direction, and so, that is the direction you follow, until finally, you find life.
You hear them before you see them; music and laughter carrying through the light breeze. And when the Wayfarers crest a massive dune, you look down upon a valley where there winds a serpentine path, and upon it walks a long caravan of people. You catch up to them, and as you walk alongside them to get to the front of the line in hopes of finding a leader, they all greet you warmly, like old friends that simply have not met yet.
There is a brightly painted wooden wagon with a group of old women in the back, their faces stained with red ochre, their eyes blind, and their mouths laughing. A young boy wearing red pearls leads a metal hover-craft with a pilgrim painted on the side, and a pack of young children in aquatic water-suits run with him, giggling bubbles into the water in their helmets. Young women of dark skin and magnificent wings trail in a line behind a four-legged robot, singing helio-cycle poems and carrying bowls of vivid fruit. You identify what must be the lapho-beasts from the story: huge quadrepeds built like a gorilla with hooked beaks, the size of a three-storey building, plodding along at a sedate pace, their backs lined with rolled up tents, and barrels of grain and water that sloshes with every one of their thumping steps. A small group of tall entities with featureless faces and elegant robes walk along a pair of rock-skinned hexapods. A squat creature with a head shaped like a mushroom dances alongside them all, strumming music on a long instrument that emits color and light with every note. Everywhere you look, there is music, and laughter, and celebration.
It takes a while to get to the front, but there, you meet the ringleaders of this pilgrimage. The first is a tall robotic entity with limbs as thin and straight as sticks, a narrow rectangular face, a bright red woven cloak, and a hat that resembles a dǒulì, wide and conical. Her name is Elegance, and she introduces you to her wife, Rēza, a short woman who resembles an upright moth, with large furred wings and compound eyes, her antenna waving in the breeze. The scarf around her neck and mouth is of many colors, and looks charmingly handmade, a little rough around the edges.
They tell you that this caravan has been traveling for thirty days, and they are not far from their objective. The unknown temple, they believe, lays little more than a week's travel away. Everybody you see has come here from local systems, hoping to find something in the Last Pilgrim's footsteps. Thousands of pilgrimages have been doing the same, one after the other, for eons.
Everybody, they say, finds something different. Something you did not know you needed until that very moment.
If you ask them if the Song is to be found there, Rēza laughs, and says they do not know. But perhaps, if you need it that badly, it will be what you find?
Elegance and Rēza are happy to have you travel with the caravan, and encourage you to meet with everyone. They also think it would only be appropriate for you to help with the caravan's various ventures: the story-tellers are trying to compose an epic poem to mark their trip, and the hunters are catching local flora and fauna to stretch out their rations. Or, you can join the sand skimmers, racing on their boards with brightly colored sails taking them through the dunes, scouting ahead for an oasis to seek more water.
Medical, perhaps, might be asked to help with desert-given injuries, sand rashes or injuries from the bone pathway. Engineers might be approached to help with the sand stuck in the joints of mechanical entities. Research & Archives might be pulled into hearty discussions about the story set on this planet.
When dusk begins to fall, the caravan draws to a stop, and they begin to make camp.
The Wayfarers do the same, setting up your tents and supplies. The carvan sets up in a series of circles, some small and contained to family groups, others large to hold dozens of people. Silverthorn is gathered for small fires in the middle of the circles, and many set about making dinner. Soon, the smells of smoke and dried meat fill in the air, stews bubbling with vegetables and foraged Firelight Brush roots, Speckled Runners turning slowly on spits to roast. Grain is pulled from barrels and pounded into powder on wide, flat rocks, mixed with scant water supplies to make a bread that is nonetheless fluffy and pale yellow once its dark crust has been broken open.
The caravan gladly shares their supplies with the Wayfarers with no expectation of the same in return, though it would certainly be polite. The lapho-beasts lay down so that their burdens may be taken off their backs, and slumber noisily next to the circles, curled almost entirely around some smaller ones.
Once dinner is served, the caravan turns to the members of the Theorem's crew, and begs: tell us a story.
You see, they have been traveling for a month, and they have already told each other all the stories they know. Stories from their own lives, stories that they were once told about others. Here, in this desert, the only currency worth anything is stories, and they are all eager for new ones. Is that not the domain of the Last Pilgrim? Is it not an honor in their name, to share stories of progress, of journeys, and of learning?
Children crowd around you eagerly, old men and women with sparks in their eyes lean in close, and the light-making music-playing creature of before hushes everyone, readying the crowd to listen to whatever story you choose to tell.
Or perhaps you are more content to listen as other circles share the stories they have told already, finding new details to highlight or new questions to ask. Either way, a lot of tales are being told around these fireplaces, and it would be wise to listen to them.
You spend the next week traveling.
It's not easy. On one day there is another sandstorm, and the caravan has to hunker down and wait it out. The following day is spent avoid the sand-whales and the barren-skimmers, but luckily, they don't go near the path of bones. You make friends with people in the caravan, you share stories over spiced drinks and good bread. You help where you can, and in return, the caravan shares everything they have with you.
You learn that they are here chasing a story: a rumor that visiting the temple at the end of this pilgrimage will grant them something they want. It does not cure illness or bestow riches, they say, but it gives you something you never knew you needed until that very moment. Some of the caravan have nothing besides the clothes on their backs, and some of them are wealthy, and some of them are seeking meaning. Some of them are from Alliance space, others are not.
A week later, Elegance and Rēza call the Wayfarers to the front of the caravan. You will have first honor of cresting the next row of sand dunes to catch the first glimpse of the temple. And as you scramble up the dune and peak its crest, you see it in the distance:
A long, almost mountain-like range of sand dunes, taller than any you've seen so far. Beyond them, the pale purple sky is lit up with fractal reflections in every color; atmospheric blue and x'enuda pink, the same orange as the optics of a robot family in the caravan, the gentle gold of the Theorem's shield.
Whatever is beyond that dune-range, it is giving up a spectacular light show.
They say it will take another day to get there, but for today, you will stop at an oasis. 
The presence of water has allowed tall canyons to form around its exterior, so you must descend downward to find the shady oasis. The water is a perfect aqua blue, so clear you can see the very bottoms of the shallow pools. Here, there is life different from the tough, scrubby plants you encountered among the dunes: plant-life whose roots are able to draw in water from the pools, crowded around the edges of them in small clusters of orange and red leaves, white flowers peeking out among them.
First, the caravan must take enough water to fuel itself. But after that, anybody is free to take a dip, to bathe themselves or merely to enjoy the cool water.
If you do, you'll find yourself curiously refreshed, like you've just gotten the first decent night's sleep in a while. It may even cure minor wounds, and ease the aches of travel.
Tomorrow, you will finally find the temple that the Last Pilgrim visited.
wildcard; because i'm a greedy (if late) mfer
Shion—his passed-out body, at least—rests half-slumped against a rock, a spot close enough to the main cluster of Wayfarers, but far enough for what he thought was a bit of privacy. Nearby, too close for anyone's comfort perhaps, are some of the smaller glass structures scattered throughout the valley, the shards of which provide a singular, clear view into a massive room. Pulsing neon power strips and mechanical lanterns light up the immediate surroundings bright blue, but it's debatable if traditional light sources are even necessary, given the amount of heat and light emanating from the multitude of large missiles that surround the edges. Enormous missiles, even, with flames of (familiar) pink burning brightly, vibrant and so very visible.
In the center of the room sits a strange, yellow capsule-like device, and standing a few yards in front of the stairs leading to it are Shion, in his usual fiery phantom of a form, and an egg-like robot with a floating brain(?), beady eyes, and a black hat, who barely comes up to the teenager's knee height. The egg-shaped robot's wagging cane and Shion's own sheepish gesture—a hand rubbing at the back of his neck—make the scene look uncannily like one of a parent scolding their child. It practically would be, were it not for the stubby, person-sized cylinder of dull metal with one rounded end, on the ground near the two of them.
All unbeknownst to the Shion in the here and now, who isn't exactly conscious at the moment.
/gimmehands yesssss come to me ghost boy
Ladon spots the teen from a ways off. He’s been careful to avoid the glass since his own encounter with it, and at first he doesn’t even register that what he’s seeing is a projection of Shion rather than the real thing. But as he draws closer, his feet scuff to a halt. His pace slows, each step measured and deliberate. Careful. The last thing he needs is another blood-soaked fragment of his own past dragged up and put on display—especially not in front of Shion. There are plenty of things he’s done that would be far harder to explain than a robbery gone wrong.
He soon notices that the glass has chosen a different target. Another source of torment. The youngest of his Wayfarer friends.
That realization makes his jaw tighten. Anger flares, sharp and immediate. He growls under his breath and snaps a wave toward the reflective surface. "Leave him alone, yeah?!"
It’s like shouting at a brick wall. Whatever governs the reflections is blind to protest, deaf to anger—unknowing, unfeeling, unliving. There’s nothing there to threaten, nothing to intimidate into mercy.
But he can do something.
Ladon drops into a crouch beside Shion, the real Shion, the heat of his frustration giving way to something colder and more focused. His first instinct is practical, almost automatic—two fingers pressing to the junction of the kid’s throat and chin, checking for a pulse. Worry roughens his voice despite his effort to keep it steady. "Shion? Hey, kiddo. C’mon, can you hear me?"
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his commanding officer'smentor'scaretaker'sonly company'sfather'sSirei's visage nearby for the first time in what feels like so long, is a question he can't answer even if he wanted to, and it most likely doesn't matter.What does matter right now, is that although there isn't a pulse on his throat, a slight hum of energy still thrums through his synthetic skin, barely there but still there. Shion's eyelashes flutter shortly after, a sure sign of life, and he groggily opens his eyes, the faint hum of energy becoming something hotter to the touch as both body and mind come back online.
"Huh...?", he mutters, confusion and tiredness evident. The android body equivalent of mashing a random key to wake up a laptop from hibernation mode has probably never seemed or sounded so organic.
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This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He’d been braced for space raptors, glass storms, something loud and violent and external. Not this. Not a kid crumpling in a corner like a dropped marionette. Of course it’s the one thing he didn’t plan for. It always is.
He stays kneeling, shifts closer, braces Shion against his shoulder with more care than he usually affords anything. His mind scrambles for half-remembered rules and secondhand advice. Keep them awake. Keep them talking. Or was that only for head injuries? Hell, does this count as a head injury? Did he hit the glass? The ground? Ladon presses his hand to Shion’s forehead, then scowls, pulling it back. Useless. He runs hot on a good day—his sense of temperature’s shot all to hell.
Still, Shion’s breathing. Awake. That’s something. Ladon keeps his voice low, steady by sheer force of will, like if he sounds calm enough it’ll make the situation behave.
"What happened, Shion? Can you tell me?"
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"I'm all right. It... It wasn't a hostile or anything, if that's what you're thinking."
No invaders, or "invaders". No third party to blame. Just his own foolishness, really. He sighs, more directed towards himself than he is at Ladon, of course. Sirei used to scold him more than once about how reckless and impulsive he could be at times, how he needed to maintain his energy better and look after himself more. He used to couch it in excuses that it was all for the mission, that Shion was the heart of the operation (which is still admittedly true), but looking back on those moments now... Well.
"I just... ran low on energy. I still am, I think."
God, at this rate, he is never going to be able to let Ladon know about the—jar if this is how he treats him as a teenager.
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This isn't, though. It's nice, once the adrenaline has ebbed out of his system. Once he knows Shion is okay.
Once he realizes why. Then he's not angry. He's just disappointed.
"Really? You keeled over 'cuz you forgot 'bout eatin'?" The sigh. The big brotherly, long suffering sigh. "Kid, you're gonna be the death of me."
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Although he doesn't have any experience with any older siblings of his own, he's heard enough very similar sighs from Sirei to know what that means. And although he could probably get away with the "I've literally never had a regular eating schedule because I've survived off of test tube nutrition all my life" excuse, he won't play that card. More likely than not, it'd backfire, and the last thing he wants to do is make people fuss over him even more than they do already.
Shion grabs at the bag slung around one of his shoulders, unzipping one of the pockets he's certain should have some pieces of jerky or granola bars or something left inside, finding...
"There should still be some—"
...Some nothing, that's what. There's nothing left in the bag pocket he's fishing in.
"...Oh. It's gone," he states, calmly, like food just magically disappears out of nowhere on a normal basis.
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Stuff like this is bound to happen. It’s not a failure, it’s physics. Pressure finds the weak points.
Ladon’s just glad he got to Shion before it tipped into something uglier. He reaches over and ruffles the kid’s hair, rough but not unkind. "Relax. I ain't usin' none of my rations. Here."
What comes out of his pack is enough to make it clear he planned for this long before it happened. Granola bars wrapped in crinkled foil. Strips of dried fruit. A squat little jar of juice pressed from those strange purple fruits that taste like oranges, apparently. Even jerky, cured hard and meant to last through long, miserable stretches where fresh food is a luxury.
Ladon isn’t the typical sort of outdoorsman, but he is a survivalist. He knows what keeps bodies upright and brains functioning, especially when fear and exhaustion start chewing holes in both. He’s spent the better part of a decade keeping his kid brother breathing and fed, a good portion of it on the run. He didn’t pick that up by accident.
"Start with the fruit and some of the juice, yeah?" he says, steady and practical. "Gotta get your blood sugars back up."
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"Thank you. I thought I had more food left on me, but I think I gave them away..."
It's second nature, no, first nature if that's even a thing, for him to think of others before himself. As if that much wasn't already glaringly obvious by the conversations he's already had with Ladon. With his index finger and thumb, Shion picks out a strip of dried fruit, as instructed, and bites into it. He doesn't have the heart to tell Ladon that his current body doesn't have blood or sugars running through the vast majority of the thing; energy is close enough and nobody needs an "um, actually" moment here.
"I've had this fruit before... I followed a man into Wasabi and he introduced me to them."
He nods to himself, as if what he said made total sense there.
Castiel. He means Castiel.
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"You gettin' along with everyone here?"
Translation: No one took your rations? No one's picking on you?
Because while Ladon isn't one to get mean with a kid, he will teach Shion to defend himself from a bully if necessary.
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He never got the man's name, but there are only so many people who that could be. Shion continues chewing through the dried fruit strip. Inefficient as the process of chewing is, it's still an experience and taste he wants to savor.
"Yes, you don't need to worry about that. My friend was hungry, so I gave her what I had. That's all."
Everyone he's met is still as kind as he thought them to be. Their kindness doesn't necessarily mean nice, from what he's observed, but that's fine. To him, it's less about the manner in which it's conveyed and more about the fact it's offered at all.
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His friend. There aren't many young women here, especially prior to the influx of new arrivals. He can likely narrow it down, though he won't harass either of them-- it's not like he wouldn't do the same damn thing. A girl comes to him, starving? He'd give her all his food too. Hell, he's pretty much doing exactly that right now, though it's different. He has other nutritional needs. So long as he has something to burn, and alcohol works surprisingly well for that, he's good. Though a good charcoal cake is a comfort now and then.
"You ain't gonna do that 'gain, yeah? Need t'remember this body needs food, even if your other one don't." Hell, even he gets peckish and lightheaded if he goes too long without substantial fuel to burn. "Share with the others, but don't go givin' it all away from now on. That's my lecture, promise I ain't gonna harp on."
And he won't. He trusts Shion to learn from this mistake. That's basically what being his age is-- a series of mistakes you either learn from or commit to and become a stubborn, old geezer about.
Not that Mr. Illiterate has any experience with that.
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"I'll take care to remember that."
Lesson learned: don't neglect yourself or else not only will your precious, precious body not be able to properly operate anymore, but also people will make a hubbub about it, whether you like it or not. Terrible.
"...It's been a while since I've been lectured, anyway."
Consciously or subconsciously, his eyes flick toward a nearby glass reflection at the mention. Or rather, the egg-like creature in them. For a moment, he could swear that if he concentrates, he can hear that all-too-familiar high-energy low baritone with the slightest of Southern twangs again, the kind of voice that commanded 'atten-shun!' instead of 'attention'.
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"Ain't meanin' to pry, but..." He looks over at the scene in the glass. It's very confusing to him, considering what little he knows of the world Shion comes from. "I'm guessin' this's an important place for you, yeah?"
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As awkward as the actual context of the reflection is, Shion doesn't mind the man's "prying" too much. After Shion himself got a glimpse of one of Ladon's less proud moments earlier, it's only equal that he get one of Shion's life before arriving here in return.
He nods, politely and slowly. "Mm-hm. That's the... facility I was trained at." Raised in, really. He doesn't say anything about the capsule, the only real world he knew for years on end. "And that's Sirei. Our commanding officer." The boozehound, as Ladon called him before. A round creature at most two feet tall, barely coming up to Shion's knee in the reflection, with short, stubbly limbs holding onto an even shorter cane.
How does a robot drink and enjoy alcohol? It's a mystery.
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It's only confidence that carries them through.
"Looks kinda like a water balloon on legs."
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"He might look silly, but nobody was more serious about the mission, or more devoted to it, than he was. ...Even if he would complain about things after work all the time."
For better or for worse, Shion knows the depth of his dedication to the operation better than anyone in the unit. Everything is and was for "humanity's future greatness".
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Specifically, a walking water balloon that had a significant impact on how Shion acts and thinks, even outside of the circumstances both of them were in.
2nd scenario spoilers + cw: vague mention of psychological torture
"...The former," he admits, after yet another pause. The mission is technically a failure without him there anymore, without their last hope, but humanity won't give up on living. "Theoretically, Sirei can be rebuilt, but... I don't know if anyone would."
Another few sips, another few short moments to figure out how to word himself as he stares at the jar in his hands. Shion's mouth curves into a frown, a little twist to it, and it's not the juice that's doing it. He recalls the image of a woman with long, dark hair, tears in her eyes and holding her head in pain as she screamed uncontrollably. A soft, wet sound as her curved blade pierced right through Sirei's body. What did Eito say, again?
"...He crossed a line. He broke her, and she broke him in return."
Unlike Sirei, though, she probably can't be put together back again. His words are quiet and flat, like someone describing the natural order of things. One plus one is two. Water is wet. Cause leads to effect. He allows himself a sigh as he takes one last swig and twists the jar lid back on, preparing to hand it back to Ladon since he's had his fill.
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It's what Camilla Flow did to her piece of shit husband. And it's what he's helped cover up.
It's what he's done to others.
But this isn't about Cammy or about him. So he says nothing to that. He instead just... pats Shion on the back. Trying to be comforting. This kid's been through the wringer. It's no wonder he hasn't come up with a nickname for him. Everything he learns about what he's been through has been even more worrisome. He can't attach it to him. He can't come up with something tongue-in-cheek.
He just has to listen and try to be understanding. He accepts the jar, tucks it instead into Shion's bag. For later.
"I'm sorry, Shion. You been through a helluva lot more than any kid should."
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Okay, but what if he still wants a nickname—"I'm...not sure if that's pity or sympathy." However, he's not offended by either notion. "But what's done is done. I've already accepted things," he responds, calmly and simply. To constantly dwell on what-ifs and should'ves, would'ves, and could'ves is a rabbit hole like no other, and not one he makes a habit of going down himself.
Putting his palms on the sandy ground, he straightens himself back up, steady and firm compared to how he was before Ladon found him keeled over.
"Thank you... For the food and for listening to me." For not asking too many questions about everything else in the reflection, too. "I should have enough energy for the rest of the day."
Shion may have eaten only a handful of dried fruit strips and had some juice, but even a small meal is enough to fuel him for a day. The wonders of having nutritional requirements for a body that doesn't match his actual age.
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"Ain't either, kid," he says. He's never been much for pity, and sympathy always felt like it came with strings. This is simpler than that. "S'just recognition. I see you. That's all."
He watches Shion push himself upright, steadier now, and that knot between Ladon's shoulders loosens just a touch. Good. That was the goal. He nods once at the thanks, dismissive in the way of someone who doesn't want credit for doing what feels obvious. "Anytime," he says. "An' if you feel that wobble creepin' back in, say somethin'. Don't gotta tough it out just 'cause you can, yeah?"
🎀
"...Okay." That's all he says to that, and all he can say to that. He can't make any promises (lifelong habits die hard), but he can acknowledge the good will in the advice pointed his way, and appreciate it. With that, he rises, bag slung over his shoulder and standing back up onto his feet in full, and nods.
"I think it's time to get going."
He's held things up enough for today, he thinks to himself. They wouldn't want to be left behind... Not that he believes that the rest of the Wayfarers would knowingly do so.