"It is that ti of the day~" A chi slipped from my mouth, as I opened an arcane portal straight to Narcissus' adorable, sleeping face. "Such a soul enriching view~ This alone should be enough to prevent from barging into her room when she is in such a vulnerable state."
After all, she did want her current rest to be more of a solitary relaxation.
As such, I needed to hold my inner beast from devouring that defenseless angel.
"Hehehe~"
Since that one debauched incident, I had been starting to crave more of a skinship interaction with that dear partner of mine. I tried my best to ignore and not showcase it, but it would only be a matter of ti until what I repressed spilled over.
I still have one favor unused—I might really need to consider what I really wanted from this one favor I could utilize.
"I shall put that thought to another day." Fingers in the air, conjuring arcane threads of uniford dinsion in planarity—my soul entrusted the new connection that I was about to establish, and there I went, sending a duplicate of my own mind and consciousness that I synchronized with my original soul. "It's ti to work~"
Through the connection forged by the contract we inscribed together, I dived into the eerie door that led to a place stranger than reality and fiction.
"... I need to find a way to make the process much less discomforting."
I had grown sowhat accustod to this place—the fractured dinsions, the spiraling math and warped shapes, colors blending into sounds, and anxiety manifesting as tangible structures. The sheer impossibility of it all still left a subtle chill each ti.
Then, as the world settled into sothing comprehensive, I found myself in an oddly serene setting: a modest classroom appear-to-be, desks lined up in neat rows, a chalkboard covered in half-erased equations. It was disturbingly ordinary compared to the overwhelming labyrinth of concepts and the formless realm I'd encountered before.
And the design of this room was as foreign to as it was familiar to the owner of this very realm.
At the front of the room, seated at one of the desks with her hands neatly folded in front of her, was Black Daffodil.
Yes, that was the denomination that Narcissus want to use when referring to her—Apparently, that na appeared to had been used to refer sothing that my dear Narcissus held important, and she didn't want the majority of my report to mix with that very Daffodil she seed to know.
The strange request aside, I had my eyes latching on the current form that Black Daffodil took.
This ti, she appeared as a young girl, dressed in a crisp school uniform—navy skirt, white blouse, black knee-high socks—complete with the unmistakable air of discipline and propriety that perated every line of her small fra.
But the face, once again, was an unsettling void, an abyss where eyes, nose, and mouth should have been. And yet, I felt her gaze, sharp and penetrating.
She tilted her head ever so slightly, the movent small but sohow commanding, as though she'd been waiting for to speak first.
"Good to see you, Black Daffodil," I greeted, assuming that this entity knew the deal as to why I was referring to her as such, since her thoughts and experience were synchronized with Narcissus in one way or another. I tried to keep my tone light and casual, but still cautious. "This… is a new form."
She gave a small nod, as if acknowledging the observation without any attachnt. "It seems appropriate for today's discussion, since I shall be trying to learn new things that unbeknownst to my understanding, like a little girl in a school would," she replied, her voice still echoing with that layered chorus, a mix of young and old, refined and eerie. She gestured to the seat in front of her. "Sit, Kuzunoha. I have so questions."
I sat, not missing the subtle weight in her tone. The air was charged, each word carrying an edge that sent my instincts screaming. Yet I kept my expression pleasant, unassuming. This was, after all, still a dance of wits and survival.
Black Daffodil's head tilted once more, her attention unwavering. "You've lived long enough, Kuzunoha, to know things others might not—I'm searching for an entity," she sat on the bigger desk on the side-front of the chalkboard, swaying her legs front and down. "The Dull Tinkerer."
Her amalgamation of voices beca soft, but it sliced through the air, leaving no room for pretense.
The Dull Tinkerer. The na rang through my mind like the slow tolling of a bell.
Unlike the usual mysteries of Carcosa or even the grotesque Calamity Objects, the Dull Tinkerer was… different.
She was a peculiar and exceptional human, one that had little to no infamy to her na—since the title of the Dull Tinkerer was not given to her by a human.
Her appearance and achievent was nothing outstanding, but her authority was on a conceptual level that transcended the mundane or even the paranormal—a hidden godly being who mingled amongst humanity, doing her own part like the churning gear of Carcosa's tapestry.
She existed on the fringes, touching reality and bending it to her whims, just as I felt Black Daffodil might in her own strange way…
"Oh, the Dull Tinkerer?" I began, carefully feigning a casual tone. "You'd be hard-pressed to find her. She's elusive, even among the immortals."
Black Daffodil leaned forward, her tiny, gloved hands folding atop one another, exuding an eerie sense of calm. "That much I know, Kuzunoha. What I want to understand is her nature. Her purpose."
Purpose? Now, that was a question even I didn't have a clear answer for.
And where did she know what a Dull Tinkerer was? Or precisely, where did Narcissus know this information?
I felt like my answers might have dire consequences if I carelessly gave the very wisdom Black Daffodil sought after. Especially since I knew that everything I uttered here will be of no use to Narcissus as a whole, since the synchronization was only one-way.
Undaunting, I t Black Daffodil's faceless gaze, keeping my mind sharp. "The Dull Tinkerer, as far as the legends say, wanders Carcosa with an aimless purpose. So say she's creating, others say she's dismantling.
"An artist, an engineer, a destroyer. There's no clear definition." I shrugged, letting just a hint of dismissal slip into my words. "She might as well be a myth."
"Is that so?" Black Daffodil's voice held an unspoken challenge, a delicate taunt laced with knowledge. She knew I was withholding sothing, perhaps the subtleties I didn't dare to divulge.
Her silence, the stillness of her small fra, radiated disinterest, but I could feel the weight of her expectation.
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