The blackness had receded into a world of brown. He stared at it, fascinated as he took in the many patterns and shades etched into the brown. It slowly dawned on him that he was positioned on his back on something comfortable, if slightly lumpy, and that he was looking upward. A ceiling, his mind provided hazily, but as to why he knew that when the concept of a ceiling was foreign to him was beyond his comprehension at the moment. He simply knew that it was ceiling, and that was that.
Not wanting to ponder on the marvel called a ceiling any longer, he let his vision travel downward to look about him, letting his mind supply him with words for the things he was looking at without questioning the technicalities as to why he knew them. He was residing on some sort of flat thing made of lumpy, but soft material with a knotted pine frame as a red sheet made of the same soft fabric covered his being. A bed, his mind supplied, after he thought about the lumpy furniture for a short while. He was in a room that contained very little besides the bed, and a wardrobe off in a corner. There was a window on one side of the room, a door on the other, and the bed he resided on in the middle. He only glanced at the window as the dark exterior was too eerie similar to the darkness in his memory, shivering at the even the vague brush upon the suppressing blackness he remembered. The room itself was thankfully not dark like the outside. Instead it was alight with flickering flames topped on sticks that were hooked onto the walls, casting the room in a soft fiery glow.
He slowly brought himself into a sitting position, his limbs sending tingling pain like tiny claws skittering up his flesh. He rested a pair in his lap, his gaze turning to look at himself now. His torso was wrapped in a white material with three, light blue stripes. It was much lighter and thinner than the material that he was resting on, the texture strangely smooth. It seemed rather loose at the shoulders but a bit short in length as he could feel a breeze on his back where the fabric hitched up. The sleeves hung close to his elbows, leaving his arms bare.
His gaze was drawn from the strange material he wore about his chest to the limbs in his lap. He counted ten fingers on a pair of hands, the skin a seemingly pale peachy color until a closer inspection revealed it to contain a slight blue tinge to the flesh. His arms held more blue to it, streaks of raised, faded blue skin created a chaotic display of parallel stripes and jagged edges across pale background. Scars, the word flitted across his mind. They did not hurt, so he moved his attention to his hands once more. He wiggled his fingers hesitantly, not quite sure how they worked. They moved accordingly to what he wanted them to do, and so after a little practice he gathered the confidence to peel away the scarlet sheet of soft material that laid upon him.
Underneath he found his other set of limbs, wrapped in the same material as the sheet had been only in dark brown instead of red. It was a tad bit abundant in length and quite loose in the waist as it had slipped down when he sat up. A pair of feet adorned with five toes apiece peered at him from under the wrapped fabric, threatening to disappear under the lengthy material. He wiggled those as well, staring in fascination as he moved each toe.
With each toe functioning and accounted for, he slowly shifted his weight around. His feet dangled over the edge of the furniture he sat on, his knees curled up so his feet hovered just above the floor. He hesitated, staring dauntedly at the stone floor beneath him before he let his knees relax, settling his feet onto the floor.
Something jolted through his being, shooting up from the bottoms of his feet. He yanked them back up not even a second after making contact, staring at the floor as his heart nearly escaped out of his throat. The strange feeling had ceased as soon as he stopped touching the floor. He continued to eye the stone warily, moving his toes to make sure they functioned. Not finding any harm to his being, he gingerly lowered them to the floor once more.
The feeling returned as soon as his skin touched the stone, a weird, tingly feeling as if some sort of invisible vines were curling up his legs. It wasn't malevolent, for some reason he knew, and it seemed to hum beneath him as it wrapped around him in a friendly, welcoming embrace.
Unconsciously he blinked.
In that moment the world changed. No longer was it bathed in browns of the wood and flickering firelight, but instead was covered in a soft glow of color. Everything seemed to be converted to a soft gold. It covered the stone floors and the wooden walls, twirling and waving like they were in the presence of a constantly changing breeze. A few tendrils circled about his body, weaving over his legs and brushing against his chest. He noticed, watching the tendrils, that he himself wasn't a shade of yellow, but instead glowed a rich azure. It was coiled tightly to his skin almost fearfully, yet as he relaxed in realization that the sudden change in color was not any harm to him, the blue began to slowly spout and brush against the golden tendrils. It was... comforting, easing his previous worries as the gold continued to shift and wrap harmlessly around him in its warm energy. Soon the azure was spreading throughout the rest of the room, exploring every piece of it as the coils brushed against the walls. His mind could not supply him with a name for what he was seeing, yet he could not bring himself to worry about it.
The azure tendrils had found themselves under the doorway, and he jolted when he felt another energy that wasn't the comforting yellows. It had been a polished, yet rocky feeling that seemed to ebb a wave of slight worry. Startled by the unfamiliar sensation, the azure shot straight back towards him, retreating from the room and returned to residing just above his skin as the door opened to reveal a short being bathed in the color of rust.
He blinked once more, finding his vision reverting back to what it was when he woke up, the glowing colors melting into browns and grays once more. He briefly wondered what had happened, but his focus was on the newcomer.
The being who opened the door was a short, stocky being with broad shoulders and large arms. He wore nothing but a belt around his barrel-like chest, his leggings made of metal and the same brown material as his belt. His eyes were a beady black that peered up at him, and his face sported a magnificent orange beard with small braids amongst the bright mass of hair. The top of his head was hidden under a large horned helmet, but he knew for certain that there would be more orange hair under it.
A mouth appeared in the mass of the short being's beard as lips curled to expose teeth in a wide, toothy smile, radiating a sense of relief and happiness. The bearded man did not seem to be a threat, so he relaxed just slightly within the man's presence.
He watched, transfixed as the lips moved and the being made a various amount of noise. He was speaking, his brain supplied helpfully, but he could not understand the bearded fellow no matter how much he tried to focus on the noise. The short being seemed to have realized this fact after speaking for a bit, returning his curious stare with a look of bewilderment before he held up one large, stubbly finger in the air and disappeared back out the door again.
He watched with curiosity as the short-statured man returned, approaching him with something in his grasp. He stiffened as the large hands reached for him, but he felt no threat from the man, and so he let him pin something to his blue-striped shirt. All the while the man was making noise, but it wasn't until a strange vaguely triangular shaped button was placed on his person when the noise crackled into focus.
"-thought it would be a hilarious idea to see what a Creeper would say and spent the entire night stalking one around trying to pin this thingy on it. Nearly blew up my wheat field, the crazy bugger."
He stared wide-eyed at the vibrant-bearded man, surprised and awed by suddenly being able to understand him, despite not knowing half of what he was talking about. He watched the man's mouth as he spoke, his tongue reaching different parts of his mouth as the words flowed out in that gruff, yet gentle voice. He only half listened to what the short man was rambling about- something along the lines of finding him in the nearby river (whatever that was), and that he was glad that there was nothing broken or visible injuries on his person. He had also dug up some clothes that he was wearing now from someone (which he had an odd sensation that his brain told him was suspicion if the articles of clothing were stolen rather than borrowed, judging from the hesitation in the bearded man's words) and that although they didn't fit him very well it was better than going nude like the bearded man found him in.
A desire to speak as well bubbled inside him, entranced by the sounds the man was weaving to communicate with, but did he even have a tongue to use? He focused on his own mouth, finding himself licking the back of his teeth. That answered that question. He moved his tongue around, experimenting with the same positions that the short man was using to convey his words, although it was limited as he did not open his mouth (for some reason he felt that would be rude to be practicing sounds while the man was talking).
"In any case, I am Honeydew! What's your name?"
The question pulled him out of his inner examination of his mouth and returned his unblinking gaze back to the short being. He didn't even ponder on the question, his name jumping out from the void of his memory and onto the tip of his tongue as he opened his mouth to speak, taking great care to use the position of tongue and lip like he'd seen the bearded man use. Inwardly he was proud with himself at his success, but that only lasted a mere second after his tongue stopped moving and he realized that the bearded fellow was giving him an odd look when it dawned on him what went wrong. He didn't make any noise.
The corners of his lips felt heavy for some reason, tugging towards the floor slightly as he furrowed his brow in confusion. He did the proper steps, didn't he? He made sure his tongue were in the right positions, starting from the top of his mouth just behind his teeth and opened his mouth just enough to brush his lower lip against his top teeth before pulling his lips out from his teeth, his tongue behind his lower teeth as he finished by rising his tongue to the top of his mouth again. Yet none of the carefully placed syllables were sounded, and his name was left inaudible.
The short man- Honeydew, got over the strangeness quickly as he smiled toothily. "Do that again one more time, just slow it down a tad." The bearded man was watching his lips, he noticed, much to his pleasant surprise. This short man barely knew him (and he barely knew himself at that), but he was willing to work around this strange muteness that he found himself possessing. He happily complied, putting his tongue back in the similar motion of his name, yet once more not a sound escaped his lips.
"Xephos?" Honeydew said slowly after reading his lip movements, as if testing the name with his own tongue. His lips curled back up into a smile from its previous thoughtful expression as he laughed, clapping the newly-dubbed man on the shoulder with a heavy hand. "Well then, Xephos, you hungry?"
Xephos found his own lips mimicking Honeydew's, pulling up just slightly at the corners as the stocky man bustled away and rambled on about the world around them and adventures he had since he came to the surface (he later identified himself as a Dwarf- a being that lived under the earth and endlessly mined) throughout most of the night as they ate through some odd but delicious tasting item called pork. Honeydew ate most of it, but Xephos did not mind, too enthralled by the stories of what was around him to worry about where the food was going to.
