After he’s finished laughing at Iskall, the two of them start working together to finish drying off Iskall’s clothes. Beef knows full well that if he doesn’t, the man will almost certainly spend the next week naked, just to spite Beef. It’d go against the spirit of the message, to have Iskall turn around and strip because of it.
“I still can’t believe you filled my house with fishes! After I spent a whole ten minutes getting them for you!” Iskall complains. “You do not understand being neighborly. It’s sad.”
“I told you, the more fish you got me, the better your interior would be. You should be grateful, really. Many people would only dream of getting to sleep with this many fishes. It’s a much kinder warning of what will happen when you mess with me than some people get,” Beef advises. “Big Salmon isn’t very happy with you.”
“Sleep with—okay, first, I cannot sleep with salmons, because it gets all my clothes wet. I respawned underwater, Beef!”
“Well, better not upset me more,” Beef says.
“Second, I do not know phrases well. I thought that was a… a saying meaning that you kill them, when you make them sleep with fishes? I thought it was a crime thing. I did not think—sleeping with actual fishes was involved,” Iskall continues.
“I find that in my line of work, double meanings are handy to really drive the point home,” Beef says. “You’ll never know how you’ll sleep with the fishes next time, after all.”
“Right. Okay. Sure. Third: since when were you in Grian’s weird fish cult? Because, dude, I don’t know if I would have spent a whole ten minutes gathering salmon for you if I knew you were in a weird fish cult.”
Beef huffs, offended. “Not a cult! Thats the wrong—I assure you, religion has nothing to do with Big Salmon, just profits and salmon-related—hold on, wait, did you say Grian?”
Iskall stops, confused, from where he’d been airing out his jeans next to a campfire, nearly setting the article of clothing on fire in the process. Beef and Iskall are promptly distracted trying to put out the pants fire, and for a moment, Beef nearly forgets his conversation. After the now somewhat singed and somehow still not dry pants are rescued, though, Iskall remembers.
“Anyway, yeah, Grian. I didn’t think you were involved with him. He made a whole weird cod cave and everything. I think he was trying to worship some ocean fish thingy. It was weird.”
“I don’t know how to unpack that,” Beef says.
“You’re doing it too!” Iskall accuses.
“No, I’m making legal business decisions,” Beef says. “I think I would know if I were in a fish cult, especially one for something as gauche as cod.”
“Technically the cult is about a mending book,” Iskall says.
“Okay, sure,” Beef says.
“He tried to tell me it wasn’t a cult too, but dude, it definitely was. I am judging him. And also you. Get better things to do.”
“It’s not—you are misunderstanding. It’s a family,” Beef says.
“Still don’t get it,” Iskall says.
Beef groans and rolls his eyes. “Like the Godfather.”
“Oh! You are trying to kill me, but for dramatic crime reasons! I get it now. You know, the whole salmon thing still seems a little creepy though, especially with Grian’s cave. Are you sure…”
“Absolutely positive,” Beef says. “I can’t believe you accused me of following something Grian started. I’m offended.”
“Shouldn’t you be more offended at the cult thing?” Iskall asks.
“You’re the one with the giant monolith. You’re one to talk,” Beef says.
“I don’t see how that’s related,” Iskall says.
Beef looks across the neighborhood to the giant looming grey obelisk, covered in runes and filled with esoteric blocks Iskall had collected from all of the hermits. He looks back at Iskall.
“Yeah, fine,” Beef says. “Let’s just finish drying out your clothes.”
“You owe me even more now,” Iskall says.
“I absolutely do not, don’t even start—”
335 notes
·
View notes