A|N: The usual mid-snowgrave story, with a bit of a spin on the usual perspective. Swatch and their Swatchlings are always a pleasure to write. Happy reading!
The statue of the fools card blocked the Color Cafe's only entrance, plunging the room into an inkwelled light. Swatch, for what seemed infinite in their entire existence, sighed. Their eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness and instead left them gripping the counter-top for purchase.
"Okay, okay, let's all calm down for a minute and, calmly, tell me what just happened." The Swatchlings did the exact opposite of their command. Typical when they were scared, but not helping the current situation in the damn slightest.
"I saw-"
"I heard-"
"A lightner-"
"A darkener-"
"And it was so awful-"
"And it was so cold-"
"And we need to get the door open! Right away!" There was a commotion, feathers ruffling as multiple bodies shoved each other at once. A sea of frantic-paced shuffles. To one direction, but no matter how they heaved, none of the birds could move the figurine.
Swatch, though they couldn't see anything, felt the counter-top get chillier. The chill seemed to sweep over everyone else, as all movement ceased, replaced with the gentle shudder that spread through the Swatchlings thin feathers. Replaced with a voice cold and sharp enough to combat the entire wind.
"Sibling, I must tell you something."
"You're better off saving it, Hen. If it can't open the door it's of no use to us now."
"Sibling, listen-"
"-Oh what is it, Hen? What's so important you can't bother to help the rest of us on far more important manners like making sure we don't get crushed by this giant statue?" Silence, infected with the tension of everyone else's gaze snapping to the both of them. What started as a chill seemed a full-blown gust of ice cold. Swatch's fingers stopped tapping on the counter to shiver unconsciously.
"What's important is that we stay inside," Hen's voice helped the chill none, adding to it a sense of steel cinderblocks that sunk the air further. "we stay together, and under no circumstances do we let the lightners in. Important enough for you, sibling?"
The biting tone in his voice sent the rest of their siblings squawking. In addition to the cryptid words he'd spoken, particularly about the lightners the Swatchlings had heard talked about all day.
"We can't leave?"
"We can't split up?"
"We can't let the lightners in?"
"We can't-"
"-Okay everyone! Let's keep a rational thought process, shall we? We musn't lose any of our precious breaths on mere questions!" Swatch, despite the darkness, looked in the general direction of Hen. The oldest Swatchling seemed to shuffle under their shadowed gaze. "Unless someone has answers for any of them."
The Swatchlings hummed among themselves. No one tried the statue again, still slightly on-edge due to the wind's icy cut into the air. Infecting them with little tremors that sharpened their feathers under the darkened cloak.
Hen, on one particular bad bout of frost pushing him to clenching his arms together, spoke up.
"I saw the lightners' magic when me and Green were preparing the streets. That's why we can't leave."
The Swatchlings' beaks perked up at the mention of lightners. No one, not even Swatch themself, had the chance to wonder more on the subject when they'd first fallen. Queen had seen beforehand, ordering them to prepare the streets and cafe for a "big event", but they'd been a no show. Or maybe they were in the palace right now.
"Their magic?"
"We must leave to greet them then!"
"We must let them in! The Queen has command us to!"
"We must view their magic! I bet it's wonderful!"
"No, no, and no. Didn't I just-" Swatch heard Hen's sigh mirror their own, and they smiled lightly. The situation would be quite humorous from an outside perspective: a mirage of buff butler birds trapped inside a cafe.
"When we were out, the lightner's magic, it was awful," He swallowed, as if the words were choking him. Seemed he couldn't find the humor in the current scenario as well as they could.
"Awful? Like bad at casting it?"
"Like awful-looking?"
"Like-"
"-Like awful, okay?! They were freezing darkeners, to the streets, frozen so solid they couldn't run away for help. I saw…we saw…we couldn't get here fast enough. I told as many people as I could, shopkeepers, commonfolk, but I couldn't reach everyone. The Ambyu-Lance's insisted they stay out to help anyone…me and Green just ran. We ran until we came here." He breathed now as if he'd freshly gotten of said run.
A chill, internal, came onto their very SOUL's. Swatch, looking blindly, now realized that Green hadn't spoken a single word since the Swatchlings had piled inside. They remembered now, how frantic her contrary red feathers had brightened, warning them. Hen's too.
All other words were drowned out by the distant sound of the howling, freezing wind. They remembered it had never gotten windy in Cyber City because there'd been no heavens to cause it. Hen had mentioned ice magic.
Impossibly cold, Swatch huddled into themselves, the opposite of formidable, now feeling a shrinking current upon their SOUL. Going outside was a sure death sentence. Despite how much they wanted to go and protect their Queen, protect their family from being crushed, they had no other choice but to wait out the blizzard.
Outside, the wind wailed.