Gilded Ashes-Chapter 324: Clodsprocket

"What are those grubblewits doing? Can’t they see she’s not made for Eon?"

Raizen’s hand moved before his brain did.

He slapped his palm over the pocket. Hard. Pressing the lizard back down into the fabric, fingers clamping over the opening, sealing it shut as quickly as he could.

The lizard’s voice cut off. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Nobody reacted.

Kenzo was mid-sentence - still talking to Saffi, something about timelines, patience and how the first attempt was never the real one. He hadn’t stopped. Hadn’t flinched. Hadn’t turned toward Raizen’s pocket with the wide-eyed terror of a man who’d just heard a reptile deliver a sentence.

Atman was looking at the canopy, arms folded again, lost in thought. Whatever "black Eon" had done to his understanding of the world, he was still processing it.

Saffi had her arms crossed. Listening to Kenzo. Nodding from time to time.

None of them had heard it.

Kenzo’s eyes drifted to Raizen. Specifically, to Raizen’s hand - pressed flat against his own chest, fingers splayed over his pocket, posture stiff. The posture of someone who had just swatted a wasp and was now pretending they hadn’t. He raised an eyebrow.

Raizen dropped his hand as casual as he could look. The most forced casual gesture in the history of human movement. He shoved both hands into his trouser pockets and looked at the trees with the expression of someone who had absolutely no reason to be nervous and wanted everyone to know it.

From inside the chest pocket, muffled by fabric and Raizen’s desperate wish for silence, the lizard spoke again.

"You almost squashed me, you clodsprocket! I was just making an observation!"

The voice was small, compressed by the pocket’s confines. But clear - every syllable articulated with a precision that no animal should have been capable of and a level of personal offense that no animal should have been motivated to express. The word clodsprocket – whatever it meant - was delivered with particular emphasis, as if the lizard had considered several alternatives and selected this one for maximum indignity.

Raizen coughed loudly. Covered the sound with a fist against his mouth and a series of follow-up coughs that were entirely unnecessary but at least bought him three seconds of audio cover.

Nobody looked at him.

The lizard shifted in the pocket. Raizen felt it resettle - a small, irritated adjustment, the creature equivalent of straightening your clothes after being shoved. Then silence. Apparently the lizard had decided that the pocket was still comfortable enough to tolerate, despite the recent manhandling.

Raizen exhaled. Slowly. Through his nose.

What in the world.

✦ ✦ ✦

After a few more minutes of talking, Saffi admitted defeat, and said that she might try later. They left the western platform in a loose group - Kenzo leading, Saffi beside him, Atman a step behind, Raizen at the rear. The main training area opened up ahead, bustling with the midday energy of students cycling through drills and breaks. The sun had climbed higher. The mist had burned off entirely. Ukai looked sharper now - brighter, louder, the wet surfaces glinting instead of dripping.

Students noticed them.

Not all of them. Not obviously. But as they crossed the training platforms, Raizen caught it - the short looks. The quick glances that snapped toward them and snapped away again. A pair of girls near the equipment racks, one nudging the other. A boy mid-drill who lost focus for a beat and recovered too quickly. An instructor whose eyes tracked them for a few seconds longer than was casual before returning to his class.

They’d heard it. The explosion. The supernova of gold and black that had consumed the western platform - there was no way they hadn’t. At that distance, they would’ve seen the light through the trees. Felt the shockwave, maybe. Heard the sound.

They didn’t know what it was. But they knew where it came from. And the four people walking away from that direction were now objects of quiet, unasked curiosity.

Raizen kept his head down. The exhaustion was still there - deep, systemic, the kind that made his joints feel loose and his thoughts move a half-beat slower than usual. Every step required slightly more effort than it should have. His body had spent something significant during the summoning, and whatever it was, it hadn’t come back yet.

But the weight was still gone. His mind was still clear. And the warm, small presence in his chest pocket was still there - tucked against his heart, breathing in the tiny, rhythmic pulses of something alive and resting.

...And apparently capable of speech.

...And apparently rude.

Raizen had too many questions.

A sound broke the rhythm of the walk. Low, involuntary, impossible to disguise. It came from Kenzo’s torso - a long, gurgling growl that announced, to everyone within earshot, that his stomach had reached the limit of its patience.

Kenzo completely ignored it. He kept walking. His face didn’t change.

The growl came again. Louder. More insistent.

Kenzo sighed. Glanced sideways at the group. "It’s almost afternoon."

The admission was reluctant - not because he was embarrassed, but because stopping for food meant interrupting the training session, and Kenzo’s default setting was to push through meals like they were optional checkpoints in a longer mission. But the stomach growled a third time, and even Kenzo’s discipline had limits.

Atman’s response was immediate. As if he’d been waiting for exactly this opening - as if the entire morning, from the Nyx fight through the summoning through the supernova, had been a preamble to the part of the day he actually cared about.

"I know a place" he said.

The words came out with more energy than anything he’d said in the last twenty minutes. The processing, the quiet staring, the whispered "black Eon" - all of it filed away, temporarily overridden by the activation of whatever part of Atman’s brain was dedicated to food.

"It’s close. A few bridges over from the Academy. The woman who runs it makes something with smoked vegetables and pickled greens that -" He paused. Searched for the right word, then after a few seconds gave up searching. "- that you just need to try."

Kenzo didn’t argue. Saffi didn’t argue. The group adjusted course – a few bridges over, following Atman.

Raizen followed with the lizard still in his pocket. Still warm. Still breathing.

Raizen bowed his head. Slightly, enough to bring his mouth closer to the pocket’s opening.

"Sorry" he whispered. "But... did you just talk?"

The pocket was silent.

For a moment, Raizen thought he’d imagined the whole thing. The voice, the words, the clodsprocket. Maybe the exhaustion had finally broken something in his brain. Maybe -

The lizard’s head emerged. Slowly. Just the top - the crown of tiny spikes, the pale gold eyes peering over the fabric’s edge. It looked up at Raizen with a really unimpressed expression.

Then it tucked its head back down, curled its tail over its face, and said nothing.