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Will liked maps, books and things of the sort. That included scrapbooking, and that included decorative embellishments. He lined the map borders with delicate calligraphy and fake jewel corners glued on. His notebooks full of pressed plants, pieces of paper, scraps of fabric and ribbon and colourful doodles. All of this was great but most of all he loved stickers. There was something satisfying in simply sticking a sticker to a page. He had houses and mountains and other practical stickers to add to maps but most of all he had fun ones. Sparkly smiley faces and other emotions, 3D puffy objects, scratch and sniff foods and books upon books of stickers of just about anything and everything. Maybe it was a bit over the top but it was fun and after people had learned he liked the stuff they started giving it to him in large quantities.
Jamie made honey based glue that somehow didn’t go bad and they and Athena had taken to turning anything into a sticker with that, small doodles and dried plants. After a while they got more strategic with sticker making but Will loved every single one, perfect or not.
Rae made glow in the dark ones with some of their glow ink after accidentally creating the first batch while he had glow ink on his hands. Ghosty had picked up sticker making too while listening to Rae talk so he’d have something to do with his hands. The two made decorative ones along with practical ones that you could write on for reminders or to leave nice messages.
Luce showed up with cool sticker pads that they’d just drop off but occasionally they would have a 3D one made of candle wax that you could rub the back of to make the wax stick to surfaces. They were occasionally enchanted or scented too like the blueberry and pine scented compass sticker enchanted with protection 4 that labeled Will’s room in the base. It was his favorite that Luce made.
Other people just dropped off stickers they had, still special although they didn’t rank close to the custom made ones.
Currently Will was going through his stickers to find nature ones to put on the newest copy of LoTW, the original copies of the books all remained sticker-less but he was allowed to decorate the duplicates. He was trying to get to the bottom of the chest where he was pretty sure he still had some of Jamie and Athena’s dried flower stickers when he got distracted by a sparkly sheet.
The sheet once pulled out of the chest had a cool holographic colour that changed depending on how the light hit it. In the middle of the sheet was a cartoonish toy robot. Now that he thought about it as far as he was aware Seven didn’t know what stickers were. Grabbing the sheet, glad for the distraction for he’d been in his room for a while he dashed out to the main area of AB. He spotted Seven in one corner and made his way over to the robot.
“Hey Seven?” He called and when he didn’t respond he quickly checked for the blinking light that indicated charging. Yep the blue flickered between on and off a clear indicator. Will debated coming back later to show off the sticker but decided that since he wasn’t sure when he would interact with Seven next to just leave it on the back of his hand.
The next time Will saw Seven the robot was still on the back of his hand, a small scratch on the top of the antenna but otherwise unharmed and sparkling blue from the angle Will was at. Wanting to start up the conversation of stickers he decided to grab another one for Seven. He found a copper star sticker that he had made when testing out metallic colours and returned to the main room to present it to his friend. Seven was still there now in a conversation with Ghosty and Will not wanting to force his way in, walked over slowly so as not to intrude.
“So it just showed up one day?” Ghosty was questioning.
“Yes, not that I mind it. It does not hinder my performance in any way and as you humans put it, it is quite aesthetically pleasing,” Seven stated.
“A robot for a robot I guess,” Ghosty agreed.
“Hey guys,” Will started and the two turned to look at him. “Am I interrupting, I can go.”
“No, no, stay. We were just discussing this image that appeared on the back of my hand,” Seven informed. Ghosty looked between Will and the sticker and immediately realized with a quiet “ohh”.
“Ya, that’s a sticker,” Will began. “I put it there, hope you don’t mind.”
“It is good. I quite like it.”
“Will has a million of them,” Ghosty chuckled.
“A million that is quite a lot,” Seven agreed.
“He’s over exaggerating but ya I do have a lot. I have another for you if you’d like,” Will offered.
“That would be satisfactory. Can you explain how these stickers work?” Seven asked as he extended his hand for the sticker.
“Well to put it simply it’s an adhesive that attaches to an image and then that image can stick to something else,” Will explained. He passed the star over and Seven began to inspect it.
“Right, simple,” Ghosty chuckled. “It’s a sticky picture.”
“Will’s explanation was understood but thank you Ghosty,” Seven monotoned much to Ghosty’s embarrassment and Will’s amusement. “Now what do I do with this sticker?”
“You use them to decorate things, like papers or books-”
“Or robots,” Ghosty added.
“Shall I stick it on myself then?” Seven asked.
“That works,” Will agreed.
“How about… here,” Ghosty said, pointing at Seven’s forehead. Seven obliged, placing the sticker slightly above between his eyes. It was tipped slightly to the left, but Will thought it looked perfectly imperfect. Will and Ghosty laughed as Seven went cross eyed trying to look at it.
“Do humans wear stickers too?”
Seven’s question took Will by surprise. He’d been talking to Luxra Vocel and hadn’t seen the robot enter the room.
“What do you mean?” He questioned back. Seven pointed to his finger that was wrapped in a bandage to protect a particularly nasty paper cut.
“Oh, no. That’s a bandaid,” he explained. “It protects small cuts from becoming infected or stops them bleeding while it heals.”
“So a healing sticker?”
“Kinda I guess.” Honestly Will hadn’t thought of that. It kind of was.
“Would it fix my arm?” Seven asked.
“Well your skin, er plating doesn’t regenerate as far as we are aware but it might help hold it together and keep out water. Although you don’t need the cotton part of a bandage and a bandaid might be too small. Know what a regular sticker might work, come with me.”
The two made their way into Will’s room and Will began to dig through his chest of stickers.
“You really do have a lot,” Seven observed.
“Ya, they’re just cool you know?”
“I do not know nor was I judging. Ghosty’s estimate of a million is a bit high but I can understand his perspective as there is a good number of stickers here,” Seven stated.
“Ya I guess so,” Will hummed. After a minute he pulled out a cow sticker, Jamie and Athena made by the art style. It was pretty big, would take up most of a sheet of paper and would work perfectly for this.
Will gestured to Seven to sit down next to him and Seven complied. Will pulled off the waxed paper backing and stuck the sticker over the gash in plating. He carefully smoothed it out so there weren't wrinkles or bumps and then smiled at his handy work.
“Very satisfactory,” Seven said as he tested movement.
Luce had just arrived with his latest batch of wax stickers and now Will was testing what surfaces they would stick to. His wooden door he already knew worked and paper obviously since he had stuck many to maps and books. Glass was a fail, understandably so though so he wasn’t disappointed. He now wanted to test metal, tools weren’t meant for stickering but armor would probably be ok. As he headed for the armory though he spotted Seven and Rae discussing something and he got a better idea. Choosing a book and quill sticker with the Aether language word for Friend he snuck up behind Seven. Ok snuck up was an overstatement. He more quietly walked, trying to look unsuspicious. Rae raised an eyebrow but otherwise didn’t question as he pressed the soft side of the wax sticker to Seven’s blank arm. Seven for his part didn’t react, just continued his conversation as Will held it for a moment until the wax cooled against the cold metal. He walked off satisfied. He realized later that he probably should have asked but Seven at least didn’t seem to mind.
Ghosty had given him suspicious spoon stickers. Honestly, what did he expect from his fellow adventurer? The stickers looked ridiculous, a sheet of spoons in suspicious looking positions like rubbing the back of their neck awkwardly or whistling with their hands tucked behind their back or literally being caught red handed. Underneath the base of the spoon was fine writing
Suspicious Spoons Incorporated
Honestly he loved these stickers. They were just so ridiculously funny. Grabbing the red handed one he planned an ambush on whoever next visited Rae’s study because that was the easiest place to spring his plan.
He settled on the stairs facing the door and watched for any sight of movement. Once Atlas raced in and he nearly springed down from the steps before catching himself. While jumping down and going back up wouldn’t be the end of the world, he didn't want to miss his opportunity because of something as ridiculous as a miss judge. And sure enough the second time an animal raced in, Bucket this time he was prepared and didn’t move. Until a not animal followed Bucket.
“Rae, are you here? Me and Ghosty found another library. We think we found another one of the instruction manuals.”
Will didn’t even realize who it was before he sprung. Jumping from the stairs to land behind the person and in front of the door he pressed the sticker onto his target’s back before dashing out. Once he got back to his room he realized that his target had been Seven. Of course it was Seven. Oh well the robot didn’t seem to mind slowly becoming a sticker book.
Seven was still sticker-afide when Will next saw him. It had been a hard week for everyone, the capturing of Sherbert was stressful so Will had been going around leaving sticker notes for everyone. Seven was charging again and since he didn’t have many worldly possessions Will decided it would be easier to just stick it on Seven himself. Choosing one of the writeable ones from Rae, a pale blue background with a orchid border and a smiling sun that actually glowed in the top left corner he quickly wrote out his message:
Thanks for everything,
especially being my friend.
He pasted the sticker onto the wrist of the wax book arm and left to go leave stickers for the rest of AB. He realized that he was becoming the sticker version of Athena and Jamie and their flowers.
The funeral was happening today. Everyone was dressed up fancy. Will was double checking his outfit before leaving when he was stopped by Seven.
“Will, most people have flowers pinned to their jackets, is this a funeral tradition I was unaware of?” Seven questioned him. Will honestly wasn’t sure.
“Maybe, not that I was aware of either. Let me check if I have any.”
To his genuine surprise he didn’t have any flowers. That just seemed wrong in general since with Athena and Jamie around most people had 10 to 20 on them at all times with more in their rooms. He realized after a minute he moved all of them up to the garden he was making. Thinking for a second he went to his sticker chest. He pulled out two cornflower stickers made from a base doodle with really dried petals layered on top.
He carefully pressed one to his chest and handed the other to Seven who did the same. Like most things it wasn’t perfect but that just made it all the more perfect to Will.
“Ready to go?” He asked the robot. Seven nodded and the two made off to join the others
The robot was a weird sight. Despite never seeing anything more advanced than an iron golem he couldn’t help but feel a sense of familiarity. Rae had dubbed him Seven and now he was following Will back to where he planned to build. The silence was awkward and after a moment Will realized it was up to him to make small talk.
“So, umm what’s that on your hand?” He asked after a moment. Something sparkly had caught his eye.
“I am not sure, it was there when I appeared,” Seven answered. He held out his hand and Will inspected it. Gently brushing away some of the vines he could make out a faded holographic picture of a robot. It was scratched and an arm had been torn off but it still smiled happily up at Will.
“Cool,” he muttered. Why did it look so familiar?
“I seem to have a few of them,” Seven responded. It was hard to see some of them with the vines but Seven pointed out a cow, a cartoony spoon and a glowing sun that had writing below it once although now the ink was smeared to be unreadable. A book with a word his mind was screaming he knew despite it being in a completely unknown language seemed to be melted in possibly wax on his arm. Will spotted a copper star that was missing a point on Seven’s forehead and they realized that the lone flower on Seven’s body was an add on too.
“Huh exactly seven, that’s uhh something,” Will muttered. He wasn’t sure what to think. Rae was a weird one and clearly knew something. That wasn’t his problem for now though, for now he’d focus on why the what he deemed as stickers seemed to mean something to his subconscious and to the voices of Luxra Vocel who had happily started gushing about a mysterious AB. That meant… something. Focus, light house then explore. He reminded himself. Although if he found any stickers he guesses he knows where to put them.