Just a little something I drabbled up a few days ago. Just a thought of what would happen in skekTah somehow ended up in skekLa's universe. Took a page from What-if-Writer on deviantART in using minor conjunctions as the cause of such a meeting...because reality jumping is fun.

Decided to turn this into a series of side-drabbles from VotSatE since I may do more with this particular idea. Thus the extra title, Reality Jumper, attached to it. Though he's currently in skekLa's reality in this, he could jump to others if any other Skeksis OC makers wanted to run into him. Just as and we'll see what we can do. Could be written one-sided or as an RP thing if desired. Your choice!

Their first meeting is a reference to a brief little meeting thing that SkekLa and I did in the comments of my first drabble, Old, over on DA. It spawned this thing in my brain.

skekLa belongs to the lovely SkekLa over on deviantART.

Art

skekTah could not believe he had been convinced to participate in this.

His only goal in this was to go home. All he needed to do was wait around, safely out of sight of everyone else in this reality, for another minor conjunction to occur. Then he'd be home again.

He was not supposed to be interacting with this reality's inhabitants, let alone leaving any trace of himself behind here!

Yet here he was, in skekLa the Illustrator's quarters, attempting to draw.

There was no skekLa in his reality. There was no Illustrator in his reality's court. Yet her story seemed to match his in that respect. There was no skekTah or Schemer in her reality's empire.

But now there was, thanks to that minor conjunction. And that was probably very, very bad.

Thankfully, when he'd turned up in the crystal chamber in her reality, the only one to have seen him was skekLa. Much like him, she seemed to have come to the conclusion that this was not normal or good. Instead of outing him to the rest, who were rushing toward the chamber to answer the crystal's cry, the Illustrator had led him safely away to her own quarters, where he'd remained for the past few days.

skekTah wished he could speak to skekZok or skekTek. They'd have an idea when the next minor conjunction could be.

But he couldn't. They weren't his skekZok or skekTek. They wouldn't know him. And if they were as xenophobic in this reality as his were back home, they may try to kill him out of a self-declared need to defend themselves from a foreign entity. And he doubted dying here was very good for his reality or skekLa's.

So in the Illustrator's quarters he stayed, safely out of sight of any other Skeksis.

He faintly recognized the Illustrator, though from where, he had no clue. It felt like a dream of some kind. Perhaps she came briefly to his reality at some point? He wasn't sure. It made no sense. If so, it had been a long time ago and was so impossibly brief.

The Illustrator was a puzzle to him. For one, she referred to herself with the female gender pronoun. He was used to the court using the male pronoun. skekLa was strange in that fact. Unique. He didn't understand why she'd choose that, but he wouldn't argue about it. It was her choice, not his. Plus this was her reality. The rules could work differently here than back home, however minutely. He wasn't about to ask her to clarify. He'd simply accept it and move on.

There were a few others in this reality that were not present in his. Likewise, familiar faces in his reality were missing from this one. It was rather heartbreaking.

But he had no time to think on those quite yet. He had no clue how long he'd be here in this reality.

Could he even get home? Surely he could. He got here. Surely he could go home again.

…Hopefully, he could…

He wasn't sure he wanted to stay in this reality, even if skekLa had shown him nothing but kindness.

He missed home. He missed skekVar and skekMal and the others of his alliance. He missed not being stuck in one room for days on end with very little to do except wait and hide.

"Almost done, Lord skekTah?"

Ah, that too. skekLa kept calling him Lord. He hadn't carried that title since before the Gelfling Gathering. Nobody he knew in the castle had ever called him Lord since then.

It felt nice to have that title again, even if only for a little bit.

"Uh…"

In all honesty, skekTah didn't want her to see his attempt at drawing. It looked horrible compared to the clean, detailed works that skekLa made with that quill of hers. His drawing looked all squiggly and lopsided and the furthest thing from realistic ever. It looked like he'd attached a paintbrush to skekNa's tail, blindfolded him, and had him try to walk in a pattern in a big room.

In other words, nothing short of complete failure.

He'd tried painting before. He couldn't do anything detailed or ornate, but he could spread great swaths of color around easily. skekZok had said it was called splatter painting. skekTah liked splatter painting, even if it was insanely messy. It was easy and looked pretty.

"Lord skekTah?" skekLa looked at him, confused. "Are you done? Your pencil hasn't moved in a while."

He could crumple it up right now. Or rip it. She'd never need to see it.

…Too late. skekLa had already wandered over to look. He had no time to hide it.

"Oh." She blinked. "That looks…unique?"

"Don't lie."

"It's not very good," skekLa admitted. "But you'll get better with practice! And with how long you could be here, I bet you'll be a very good artist before you go."

"Thanks for the motive, skekLa, but I think I'll pass on that. Art isn't my thing. Spying is," skekTah replied, sitting up and groaning when his back cracked.

She flinched at the noise, looking at him with concern. "Are you sure you're okay, Lord skekTah?"

"I'm fine. I still have my herbs. I'll live," skekTah reassured, stuffing a few of the bitter leaves from his pocket into his beak.

He didn't have much left, really. His herbs were quickly running low. skekLa couldn't identify the variety of plant and having her ask around would look too suspicious. skekTah had resolved to keep up his illusion that he was in no shortage of his herbs and handle the problem once it became one. There was no need to trouble the Illustrator any further than he already was.

After all, she was allied with the Chamberlain, who in his reality was one of his primary foes.

His reality's skekSil persisted in trying to gather secrets and encroach on the Schemer's position. The Chamberlain had made little headway but it only took one big secret to tip the scales against one of them. skekTah had been fighting since the Gelfling Gathering to avoid such a positional upset between them.

The Schemer had decided immediately to avoid the Chamberlain of this reality, even though skekLa would've probably felt more comfortable not withholding such a big secret from him. skekTah could tell just from the way she spoke of the Chamberlain that she regarded him highly and with much affection. How much, he wasn't fully certain, but it was much more than he felt was necessary in an alliance.

The risk of skekTah being exposed to the rest of this reality's court was just too high. The Schemer couldn't trust the Chamberlain, even if it wasn't his reality's Chamberlain. The risk was just too great. It was bad enough anyone had seen him at all.

skekSil was skekSil. The Schemer doubted that the urge to expose an outsider, especially in pursuit of power, would be so easily ignored in the Chamberlain, even with skekLa on said outsider's side.

skekLa rose from her seat. She had to go deliver scrolls to the Scroll-Keeper now that she had added her illustrations to them. Granted, the usually boring scrolls looked much more interesting now.

skekTah almost wished there was an Illustrator in his reality. It would make reading those scrolls much more enjoyable, he decided.

"I'll be back shortly, okay?" skekLa said.

"I'll stay. I wouldn't dare leave," skekTah reassured, settling on the ground again.

skekLa quickly left, closing the door behind her. A sharp clunk signaled that it had been locked. skekTah instantly felt safer. It would be difficult for anyone else to get in here now.

He shifted his gaze across skekLa's workspace. Drawings of all kinds littered the table and the wall above it. There were plenty of her and skekSil, along with numerous ones depicting the members of her alliance. A few of the Skeksis he did not know were also drawn, all beautifully detailed.

He glanced down at his own poor drawing. His skill was childish compared to hers. He felt rather sick, looking at his messy lines and lack of actual detail. Shame filled him. What had he been thinking, letting her talk him into trying?

…Nobody started out that skilled…

He could pursue this if he wanted to.

skekLa was right. Who knew how long he'd be here for? There was no way to judge the passing of a minor conjunction until it was already in progress, unless you were skekZok or skekTek. Since he could not ask either of them for those answers and skekLa couldn't ask without looking suspicious, all he had was time to kill until he got some rough estimate of when the next one could be.

He smiled, standing up on his numb legs. Maybe he'd try learning how to draw.

Snapping the tip off of one of his tail spines, he pinned his rubbish drawing to the wall near some of skekLa's. It would serve as his motivator. He hoped she wouldn't mind. If she did, she could take it down. He'd just use hers as a motivator instead.

If she liked it, she could keep it. He didn't care.

He probably shouldn't be leaving evidence of himself behind in this reality…but what harm could a drawing do?

He settled back down against a wall to nap. There really wasn't much else to do here until skekLa got back. At least he'd never really be exhausted...

.o.o.o.o.

"Lord skekTah? Lord skekTah?"

"Nnnn?" skekTah roused himself, blinking tiredly up at the Illustrator. "What?"

She turned, indicating his drawing. "Where'd you get that pin?"

skekTah chuckled in amusement. "Call it…a piece of myself."

The Illustrator looked confused.

No surprise. He hadn't told her about his tail. He rather liked that look on her face. Confusion was an emotion he relished in witnessing, especially when he was the cause.

He settled his beak atop his arms, which were atop his knees. "I'm taking a nap. Wake me in a few hours or if you need me for something."

He fell asleep quickly. A new skill he'd picked up over the many trine since the Gelfling Gathering. His spying didn't allow him to follow his old sleep schedule anymore. He slept when he could and worked the rest of the time.

The skill worked nicely here. Not that skekLa was very loud. It was just useful to sleep near instantly, to shut his mind off so quickly. It helped to kill time.

Once he was out, skekLa turned to inspect the drawing. It was haphazard and messy, drawn with a childlike scrawl to it. It was rather cute. It depicted two messy figures that she could only guess were Skeksis.

She wondered who they were. skekTah hadn't put any writing on the page. She had seen his writing. It was lovely, though he claimed his urSkek writing had been much better.

It was the pin that caught her attention. It was tall but thin in width, pointed into what she could safely assume was a rough triangle shape. It was an off-white color and almost looked serrated, like a tooth but it was much too thin. She couldn't recall seeing anything like it before.

She reached up to touch it and yelped, yanking back her hand. The tip of her finger was sliced, a single drop of blood oozing out. She stared at the pin in shock. She had barely touched it!

Sucking softly on her cut finger, she turned to look at the sleeping Schemer.

"Hmmmmmm…"

Perhaps there was much more to him than she had initially believed.