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In spite of the party’s jovial atmosphere, as the night stretched on, Sackboy found their mood souring. They had a hard time figuring out why. Because, well, shouldn’t they be happy? They had accomplished no small feat. Defeating Vex, destroying his machine, preserving the creativity of Craftworld and rescuing all of their friends? Wasn’t that something to celebrate? It seemed so.
Then why did they feel so melancholy?
The fireworks and feasts had been fun for a couple of hours past dusk. But while the revelry continued, the cheer died out for the town’s hero. Sackboy kept to the back of the festivities, sitting in the corner and twiddling their thumbs. A few partygoers had noticed them there and tried to get them to come and celebrate more, but most didn’t even notice they’d stepped away from their own celebration.
A garland-covered streetlamp lit up the remains of a torn-apart pinata. Someone had thrown it together at the last minute with paper mache, giving it just enough time to try before slapping red and blue tissue paper all over it, stuffing it full of confetti and sweets, and offering other sacklings bats to swing at it with. It hadn’t been shaped in any particular way, but with how it was smashed against the ground, it might as well have been an effigy of the real Vex.
Sackboy squeezed their eyes shut, trying to will away the unease.
“You can’t hold back the Uproar forever, Sackboy!”
The Jester’s voice howled in their thoughts, stubbornly sticking no matter how many party games they tried to distract themself with.
“As long as there are dreams, there will be nightmares!”
Had it just been a bluff? A parting barb to keep them from feeling like they’d truly won? Sackboy knew little about the deeper intricacies of Craftworld. Until a short while ago, they had only known Vex as a boogeyman, a mythical spectre meant to frighten sacklings into going to bed on time. He was an overwhelming force to face in person. How could they be sure he was truly gone? Scarlet had sounded certain. They wanted to believe her, and yet here they sat, hours later and still restless.
Near-silently, Sackboy grabbed a lantern and headed out of Loom. Their adventure wasn’t quite concluded yet.
As they walked, they continued to think. Were they worrying too much? Was all of this just their overactive imagination conjuring up more problems? Were they so used to imminent danger that they couldn’t settle down once it was truly gone?
Something just didn’t feel right. Something didn’t connect. Sackboy didn’t want to demean themself, but they still wanted to be sensible. If all the Knitted Knights of yore hadn’t been able to defeat Vex, then how had they, barely a squire in training, been able to banish him singlehandedly? It wasn’t likely that they alone somehow surpassed all of the past knights put together. So had the entire defeat been staged? Had Vex pulled yet another trick and used it to slip away once more, plotting and scheming until he unleashed another attack on Craftworld? Were any of them really safe??
Sackboy realized their hands were shaking. They took a deep breath and tried to calm themself.
Craftworld’s center was…almost disappointing, were they being honest. Disappointing in that there was little to see. It was the exact same as they and Scarlet had left it several hours ago. The Topsy-Turver still lay smashed against the moat that encircled the tree, leaving the shore a lumpy mess of sand, dirt, and scattered machinery. Would it get cleaned up? Would it be unsafe to just leave it there? What if something leaked into the moat? Could it poison the water and be soaked up by the tree’s roots?
It was a tangible step, at least. One they knew how to act on. Sackboy put the lantern down and occupied themself picking up bits of rubble and making a pile, a good distance away from the water. They were only so big, but every little bit had to help, didn’t it?
Sackboy gathered heaps and heaps of metal, wood, and glass. They wondered where Vex had gotten it all. Probably stolen, just like the bananas and the tides. So much time and effort and kidnapping and thievery, and for what? Just a vessel for Uproar? Vex could have done so many good and wonderful things if he used his ability to design things to help others instead of hurting them. It felt like a waste.
They gazed up at the shell of a machine. It had been made to be a vessel, hadn’t it? So where had the Uproar it was supposed to hold gone to? Was it inert, still trapped inside the remains of the Topsy-Turver? Was it leaking out into the moat? Floating off into the air? What was it, in its tangible form? Could they even perceive it? What exactly was Uproar?
Distracted by their pondering, Sackboy didn’t take notice of any movement until a noise interrupted their thoughts.
“M- mhh…”
They stood at attention immediately, unsure and uncertain. The piece of broken machine in their hands fell and hit the ground, splitting further into fragments.
A plane of metal at the wreck’s base tipped and hit the shore with a thud. Sackboy wondered if it had just been the wind, but they very quickly noticed a shadow on the shore. They watched, astonished, as something dragged itself out from the water, staggering along the beach and leaving a soggy trail along the coastline. Water dripped off of every inch. It staggered under the weight, struggling to find its center of gravity.
After a few shuddering attempts, it managed to stand up and keep its balance. Hands clumsily pawed away bits of seagrass that hung off of its head. Once its eyes were free, it looked back and forth with a wide, empty gaze, and suddenly Sackboy could tell what they were looking at.
A strange little sackthing, not unlike themself, crafted from blue and red fabric.
They moved to take a step, then changed their mind. Their foot came back and landed on a fragment of plastic, making it snap under their weight.
The stranger automatically looked in their direction. Sackboy winced. But, to their surprise, it appeared as though the feeling was mutual.
It took several moments before the newcomer was willing to try and approach. It only made the similarities more obvious when they were at close range- the same colors, a familiar drooping hat, even a poncho that resembled the jester’s cloak. But the uncertainty in his eyes wasn’t anything like Vex at all.
“I’m sorry,” he said, timidly turning his head back and forth. The motion made the little bells on his cap jingle. “Do you know where I am?”
The resemblance was uncanny, and it made Sackboy immediately step back in hesitation. The other’s eyes went wide with confusion.
“Do you know me? Have I met you before?” He asked, sounding as uneasy as Sackboy felt. “Have I done something wrong…?”
The thought of it all being a ruse came to them quite quickly. Vex was a master of chaos, it wasn’t unreasonable to expect that he would use some strange tactics. But…but there was just such an earnest shine in his eyes, so soft and uncorrupted, so…similar to them.
Scarlet. This was something Scarlet would know. Sackboy reached out and grabbed onto the familiar stranger, pulling them back in the direction they had come from.
“Oh, w-where are we going?”
The trek back was shorter than it had been out, and even shorter than the time before that. The strange sackling thankfully kept pace all the way, though audibly proclaiming his confusion towards everything for the whole trip.
The party hadn’t even waned in the time they’d been gone. Sackboy almost wanted to be upset that nobody noticed their absence, but there was something more important to worry about right now. But they didn’t know what direction to go in, which one would they assume she had-
“And if it isn’t the guest of honor!”
As it seemed to always go, Scarlet tended to find them, rather than the other way around. She greeted them with a grin and a pat on the shoulder, a glittery party hat the only addition to her usual adventuring attire.
“Sackboy! Was wondering where you’d gone off to, there’s still plenty of party to be had! Gerald wondered if you’d gone to bed- oh?”
And she wasn’t one to miss the obvious. Scarlet immediately spotted the additional sackling accompanying them. She sized up the newcomer, a hand on her chin.
Sackboy wondered how she would respond. She wasn’t dumb, surely she had to recognize her old enemy, right? Would this upset her? Had it been a terrible idea to even think of bringing him back to Loom?
“Hello there, little harlequin. Nice to meet you. My name is Scarlet.”
“Hello, Scarlet!” He beamed back, seemingly as unfamiliar with her as he had been with Sackboy. “Oh. ‘Harlequin,’ is that my name?”
“It can be, if you’d like.”
He thought for a moment. “I think it’s nice.”
“Harlequin it is, then!” With a smile, Scarlet ushered him off towards the festivities. “Go on then, the night’s still young! Why not go introduce yourself to everyone?”
With a timidly eager giggle, he waved goodbye and scurried off, waving at the nearest sackpeople he could find. Sackboy stayed behind and watched with unease.
“So you found him again.”
Sackboy looked up at her, puzzled. Her voice had lowered and turned to a whisper just for the two of them to hear, but it was a gentle whisper.
Scarlet gave them a conspiratorial look. “You might’ve already guessed who that little stranger was. Well, who he used to be, before a brave knight came and purified the darkness inside of him.”
Their mouth dropped open with unspoken words. Their mentor laughed. “Oh, you’ve got a lot of questions, I can tell from the look in your eyes.” She nodded as she spoke. “The duty of the Knitted Knights is to defeat threats and push back the Uproar. But, like Vex said, where we have dreams, we will always have nightmares as well. That is simply a part of nature. It’s far more powerful than even Vex could grasp. He was just another proxy for it, one in a long, long line.”
The harlequin continued to run along the town square, eagerly greeting and being greeted by the residents.
“Thing about nightmares, though,” Scarlet continued, “they always got to come from something. That’s why the Uproar needs some poor Craftworlder to grab onto. Nightmares don’t make themselves. They take something nice and twist it into something foul.
The Uproar never gets content sitting around. It’ll get busy slithering around in the shadows, looking for something new to latch onto. Oh, and it can be quite patient. With enough time, something always falls under its sway. Maybe our little harlequin will feel the tug of chaos in his stitching. Maybe a new king of nightmares will rise up from the shadows many years from now. The darkness of Craftworld is never well and truly vanquished. We just scare the nasty gits back into their hiding places for a while.”
Scarlet’s voice was bright, but her words weighed on them like a stone. So…they hadn’t won. Not at all. Why had they gone to the trouble of celebrating, then? What was there to celebrate? This wasn’t a victory. It was just a ceasefire.
Still, she looked at them with patience. “Don’t despair about it. I know it’s tempting. I did it too, back when I was in your shiny new boots. ‘What’s the point of it all, then, if we never really win?’ But we do. Our successes just come in…more unusual forms.”
“Sackboy, Sackboy!”
They turned to the sound. Harlequin ran up to them, overflowing with delight.
“Look what the nice crab gave me!” He held up a little toy sparkler, glimmering with light as it fizzled. “I got you one, too!”
A toy. He had gotten them a toy? Sackboy looked between the sparkler and Scarlet.
She offered them a playfully dismissive sweep of the hand. “Oh, don’t worry about my dull ol’ self, this is your party! Go on, then, you two go have fun!”
The sparkler lit up as soon as they took it. Sackboy took his hand, and the two dashed off through Loom, laughing together under the light of the fireworks.
Sackboy had every intention to do their best to plant and cultivate a seed of goodness in the jester’s core. If it was a futile effort, and Vex grew back into chaos and villainy despite it, then they would at least have given him a choice this time.
Maybe, if they were lucky, the two of them could face the next threat to Craftworld as comrades.