Chapter Text
Hold the thread... go over… top of loop... pull it… down… through the loop… whoops, don’t lose the live thread…
There.
There's something soothing to the constant click-clack of his fingers as they tend to the wool. He’s forfeited the needles long ago, choosing instead to slide the thread over his bare fingers. The spindly bones are basically needles anyway.
If you’d told Jano a mere year ago he’d enjoy knitting, the demon would have laughed the mere idea off.
But today something feels off.
At first, Jano thinks it’s something with the pattern of his newest project that bugs him, so he lets his gaze scrutinize it. But the pattern is right, his technique has become a lot better too. He sees nothing but improvement.
Regardless, the sensation of something very wrong coils in his gut, but there are no signs to indicate its cause.
Maybe he just ought to take a break.
Just as he decides to put the knitting to rest a cold shiver runs down Jano’s back.
He strips the wool from his talons with a feeling of urgency. It doesn’t matter that this row is lost or his weaving might fall apart at the seams - there's a tingle of Nightmare magic in the air.
It’s ever so faint, but it’s not his own and that’s enough to make him alert.
Then he hears it. The sound of a door trying to open. A rift emerges, discolored and wobbly. Its light surges of power before fading to a soft glow… then the tip of a finger breaches from the thin slit in midair. Jano jumps to lash at it, fights it back inside. Even through the small gap, he can sense that the new seal is still in place!
The Guardian’s talons crackle with magic as he slashes at the rift, sewing it shut with imbued spiderwebs from his abode. It's a poetic irony how the knitting techniques are coming to serve him well now.
A mix between a whine and a growl sounds from the other side before the portal poofs out of existence.
…
But Jano’s pulse isn’t slowing down.
His breathing comes ragged, his talons are still clicking against each other from the faint tremble of his hands.
Something just tried to breach with all safety measures in place. Through a rift that’s not the gate, or a door and defies any protocol.
And Jano knows in his heart that it was just testing the waters. With certainty – it will try again.
Rayman doesn’t know how to tell Jano that the danger might already have passed with him containing the breach, but he also doesn't have the heart to leave him be when the Guardian is so anxious.
Even though Rayman doesn’t expect a threat again he decides to stick around; offering some casual company if only to take Jano's mind off of things.
A cozy campfire, some improvised music from an ukulele Rayman brought along, questions about Jano’s newest knitting project.
But it doesn’t work.
It hurts the Limbless to see his friend so on edge, but what else is there he can do to lift the Nightmare’s spirits? He did promise Jano that he’d come around if ever there was trouble, so he’s going to stick to that.
As the day is dragging on though, and the Swamp starts growing colder again, Rayman starts tugging on his hoodie strings. Jano, in turn, offers him a rough blanket (handmade, Rayman takes note with a smirk).
"Want me to stay the night to take over a shift?" Rayman offers.
"Don’t," Jano scoffs, "I don’t ever want you guarding the cave again."
Rayman makes a sound of complaint in mock disappointment when Jano, more humbly, tags on, "But yes. Stay. Please."
The smile Rayman offers as he takes the offered blanket doesn’t reach his eyes. Jano’s worry begins to rub off on him.
Most of the evening passes peacefully. It’s way past midnight, Rayman just about to nod off when something stirs.
Jano’s talons poke Rayman in the chest before latching onto his belly and softly shaking him awake.
"It’s here," the Guardian says and drowsily Rayman gets on his feet to look around for just what has Jano so startled.
Rayman can’t see a thing in the dull torchlight, but he does sense the prickle in the air that makes his hair frizzle like electricity.
When the Rift appears again this time it’s in the shape of multiple doors. Rayman inches closer to Jano and begins charging an energy sphere while the Nightmare beside him growls. The Limbless can’t help but spare him a cautious glance, glad the intent is not aimed at him.
Jano lunges at one of the doors, spits a flame through it while his claws try to stitch another rift closed. The sphere in Rayman’s fist begins to crackle with energy but the culprit has yet to emerge.
Then he catches movement in a portal behind Jano.
Rayman tries to shout out a warning but his blast goes off first. It narrowly misses the dark shape, bounces off from the opposing wall.
As the dark cloud is gaining form, alarm bells go off in Rayman’s mind, and a pair of piercing yellow eyes bear down on him, hidden within a dark wispy shroud that bears no shape safe for the rim of a large hat that both hides his appearance but reveals the culprit’s identity.
Rayman hasn’t heard a peep about this one in years and now he knows why.
The gaze captivates him. He tries to step back and ready another salve, but before he can a hand flies out. A clawed, stained fingertip points at him and it's like Rayman can no longer move… or breathe. It’s like the ground gets ripped from beneath his feet…. and then he falls when Jano lunges at the old Nightmare and begins tearing into him.
Rayman tries to right himself to the sound of feral snarls and tearing cloth. A blur of shapes moves and in his periphery he sees Jano - he thinks - pinning the specter to the wall. The air grows hot with odd-tasting Magic, Rayman can’t tell whether it’s Jano’s or his, but his own feels out of reach.
Jano’s claws dig into the other Nightmare with a satisfying squelch, but the intruder gives no sound or sign of pain.
He tries pulling him back to the broken rift to send him back where he belongs, when a burst of dark energy erupts from the dark mage. It flings both Jano and Rayman back in a violent explosion of tethering rage, whispers that try to take over his mind - they barely get a chance to fester before Jano’s back connects with the wall of his nest, and the wind is knocked out of him.
In the chaos Jano can only hear Rayman’s shout before his own conscience succumbs to the whispers. He's faintly aware of his own talons beginning to claw at his face at the lingering insanity before his mind is blanketed in a coat of darkness.
When Jano comes to his senses again it’s a sickening blur. One of his arms feels odd and unstable. His face is tight with the sensation of dried blood.
But he’s drenched when he pulls himself from the murky depths of the swamp. Why was he in the water…?
As he reaches the ledge to his Nest his eye lands on Rayman, limp on the floor. Dark magic flits across his form in indigo sparks.
Alarmed Jano claws the last of his way up and hobbles over to his friend’s prone form, tries to shake him awake, but only gets zapped with a surge of black magic as he tries to.
His mind starts spiraling with the worst possibilities as he tries again and comes to find that his claws are tainted with blood. At least he got the bastard that did this good!
"Come on," he tries calling to Rayman, his sullied talons hovering over his friend without touching him.
"Wake up. You gotta. Don’t do this to me."
His plea falls onto deaf ears as Rayman doesn’t respond. It doesn’t even look like he’s breathing.
Jano’s own breath hitches to a stop at the realization… but he’s not dead. No, that’d be… that’d be different. He’s still here. Still here-
It’s wrong, wrong, wrong!
The Limbless looks… broken. There are bruises and wounds that suggest more has gone down since Jano was out. More than what matches his own handwriting.
The Nightmare doesn’t know what to do. He wants to help, somehow, but if he forces his way through the magic without knowing what he's doing he might end up hurting Rayman more.
Something about that thought doesn’t sit right, makes his head sting and his mind ring with whispers. When he blinks the dizziness away his eye catches a deep cut on Rayman, a bleeding gash just faintly obscured by the view of his own fingers as they hover over the hero’s still form.
Panic strikes him, a shocking revelation that turns the blood in his veins to ice.
The sight is horrifying, but it bleeds at the edge of his vision and a deep chant warbles in his mind; ancient words even Jano would struggle to remember. They are not his own.
"No!" Jano exclaims as the very talons dig into his own head, "Get out of my head," he snarls.
He can’t be sure those wounds are real. Doesn’t want them to be.
If the intruder is trying to drive him insane he’s doing an outstanding job. But Jano won’t be done in by a mind demon of all things. Not on his own turf, not in his own expertise.
He stumbles back with a growl. Psyclopses bubble into existence from black tar and scatter off to send warning to the Tree and seek out the pest in Jano’s territory.
As his messengers leave, so does the feeling of being watched. But Rayman’s state doesn’t change; doesn’t improve in the absence of what caused it… and Jano doesn't have the heart to chase after the bastard that caused it if that means abandoning his friend as he is.
It’s all he can do to keep watch and hope that help arrives fast enough.
…
Even when scrubbing them in the murky swamp waters relentlessly, the blood on his hands refuses to come off.