funky-fox-fics

[funky-fox-fics]

you said you were stuck in a time loop, which was fine. i feel like late-stage capitalism has us all in a time loop, ammiright? you came barging in at 5:33. in the morning. i hadn't even processed the idea of coffee.

but you had this look of utter panic in your eyes. terror like the ocean. you grabbed my cheeks. im in a time loop.

i don't know why in movies the first reaction is to deny it. when someone is panicking like that, it's not appropriate to ask them to calm down. it didn't matter if i believed it, what mattered was that you believed it so much that it was consuming you.

so here we are. i pour you some of the dark roast. "you look like utter and entire hell," i say.

you push your fingers into your eyes. "you always say that."

i try to think of something funny to say that i wouldn't have said on previous time loops, but jokes don't land without the proper timing (lol). "remind me to think -"

"-yeah, of a joke that only works in the future. and before you say anything, i know you're pissed i just stole your punchline." you bolt the coffee, which is wild. it's very hot. you don't seem to notice.

i blow on mine to cool it down. i both am very pissed at you and also i can't see you in this amount of panic without wanting to help. but i'm also not really sure what we are, not since i saw you kiss her like that, no offense. it just was like, kind of rude when you knew i liked you.

and besides. i'm just like, barely a person. i write omegaverse fanfiction. i love the concept of a time loop, but what the fuck am i gonna do? send an alpha in there? i open my mouth.

you point at me. "you're about to ask why me. and then say some disparaging shit about yourself. i'm just a nerd who plays dnd or something. that self-own is slightly different each time." you sigh. "i know you think you can't really help me. i don't know who can help me. i only came to you because you fucking believe me." you check your watch, sigh, and throw your head back. you cover your eyes with one hand. "i've come here on 26 separate revolutions," you say. "you have believed me every time. and yeah, i have no idea how you fit into this but i just -" you sigh again. "i just like fucking talking to someone about it."

"do you need more cof-" i start, but you're already holding the empty cup out. i frown at it. "you're not getting any more until you promise not to bolt this one like an animal."

you laugh a little and sit up, pushing your hair out of your face. "okay, that's new dialogue. but to be fair to you, i'm not usually this rude. i'm still pretty new at all of this." you check your watch again. another sigh. i guess you're cruising for a personal best in the Sigh Olympics.

i almost tell you im not an NPC but i've played enough video games. to know i'm very much an NPC. i pour you another cup. "so what happens in the loop?"

"really bad explosion." you mutter into the mug. you put your elbows on the table (rude) and bury your face in your arms like an angsty teenager. one hand floats up while you talk, because evidently you literally can't talk without your hands. "i have to save the day and there's this bomb and i have no bomb training and it keeps moving, you know."

"do i die?"

you peek up from your arms. "yeah. bigtime. you keep trying to run or stay or do anything and you always super die."

"oh."

"to be fair, like, everyone dies in it though.... so you're in good company."

i hate that you make me laugh. i hate that being around you always feels tingly and strange, this electric tension between us. something that is evidently (given how you stuck your tongue down a stranger's throat literally 3 days ago) (well. 3 for me) super one-sided. i take a sip of my coffee and close my eyes.

i die today, i guess. a little spark of panic starts at the top of my hands and starts whipping up my wrists.

"shit," you say. you look at your watch and jump to your feet. "i have to go. if i can come back, i will. i am still trying to figure out when is best to do everything, you know? the order of stuff. maybe morning isn't good for us."

i look up at you and think about how you keep kissing me in the back of my car and in alleyways and in the dark. and i can never fucking get a read on you. and i also think about how incredibly panicked you look. how broken. how long have you been doing this? "i don't want to die," i say.

you glance downwards. "well, you're not really dead, you'll come back in the loop."

"but i will have died." my hands are shaking. i am trying really hard to stay calm.

you push your hands through your hair again. "i really have to go. i will have this discussion with the next version of you, though. it is like, something i am thinking about."

"but i don't get a next version," i say. i don't really have the language for this, because i haven't had 26 tries with you. i only have my memories: you, a week ago. drunk and telling me you loved me in my ear. you, kissing her anyway. you, months ago, throwing up on my birthday, whispering to me i ruin everything i touch, always, over and over. please don't ask. i can't ever fucking have that be you.

i run my finger along the rim of the mug. "i don't want to die in this one."

you seem baffled by this. "i get that but - time will reset, you'll be fine, you won't even remember we talked about this."

"but i know now." i stand up too. "i have to live the rest of this day knowing i could die. knowing i probably am going to."

"you could always die, to be fair."

i feel my hands get out of control. "earlier, you said i always say a different insult about myself. what if you're just going through different parallel universes and those are all just different - but real - versions of myself? what if you're not in a time loop, you're in a fucking universe loop?"

"if it helps, i've wondered this too. also, you're hot in all of them. if that helps."

i point at you. "no flirting. i'm trying to figure out if i die today."

"who's flirting?" you catch my wild hands and give me that long, perfect smile. like we're in this together. "i won't let ya die." you check your watch and sigh again. "well. maybe not this time."

i grit my teeth. you are so not making quips at me while i try to explain the existential dread i'm having. "does the time loop reset if i fucking kill you?"

"honestly i don't know how long it continues after i die, because i just wake up. it could be that the loop goes until the explosion for everyone, and we're all in the loop, or it could be that when i die, the loop restarts. when i die i wake up, is all."

i pull away from you and stalk into the kitchen and start doing all 3 of my dishes. "okay, first, you know i was joking. and secondly, this is exactly my point. you don't know if this is just a parallel universe. maybe in the ones where you died, the explosion happened and nobody reset and it's just you travelling." i have to stop and push my heel into my eyeball. "... how often have you died?"

i look at you. you look at me. you give me this very sad, halfway smile and a little what can ya do shrug. something in that action seems so old and weary that i want to burst into tears.

"i have to go," you say. "really. for real. there's this family of five i save from getting into a car crash. and i know it's like oh but we're all gonna die in the explosion anyway, what's the point. and..." you shrug again. "it matters to me, is all. at least i saved them for now. at least i saved anything."

you pad over to me and wrap me in a tight hug. you always seem so tall against me. i feel your cheek rest against the top of my head for a moment. for a second, it's just us, and the space is warm, and my heart is a little broken hare.

you leave me there, and i stand in my stupid badly lit kitchen with my stupid mugs. i think about you. i start texting my mom that she needs to get out of the city, but it feels pointless.

i don't know what to do. tomorrow is the same day for you. but i have to prepare to die in my today.

[funky-fox-fics]

No one showed up for the last story time.

[funky-fox-fics]

There’s something always so intimate about writing.

You can be writing about fantastical worlds or eldritch creatures. About impossible timelines or mundane situations.

But somewhere in the middle of all that, there’s the nickname a loved one gave you, now spoken as an afterthought by a character you wrote.

Or there’s that unusual anecdote you never tell at parties because there’s never the right time, but now it’s told during a family gathering in your story.

Or that feeling you can’t get out of your chest in your most vulnerable moments, finding a cathartic outlet during an important plot point.

Or the quote you loved, the movie that marked a special moment in your life, the experiences and adventures no one but you have felt in that way.

And that’s why, even if you write the same thing as everyone else, using the same characters or situations, no one will ever sound like you.

Your voice as a writer is unique, blessed with your insight, plagued by your demons, the voice loud with your tone and spice.

Because writing and any form of art and self expression will always be one of the most intimate outlets we have.

[funky-fox-fics]

When you learned of the god of war, you thought he’d be tall and muscular and angry. When you were about to meet him, you braced yourself for the worst.

You weren’t quite expecting the short, scrawny, shy kid you ended up getting instead.

[funky-fox-fics]

So, the thing about being damseled, Welsknight is rapidly realizing, is you don't really have to be a damsel to do it. Or have it done to you, that is. Being damseled isn't really a gender thing, like all the old knights tales would have him believe. He doesn't have to have long blonde hair, or a princess dress. He doesn't have to make deals with obscure fae gods or spirits, doesn't have to know how to weave golden thread. Heck, he doesn't even have to be locked in a tower. Damseling -- that is, the state of being a damsel in distress -- is a much broader scoped state of being. It's not so much a trope or a role, and more of... An essence. A vibe. If one can be trapped and helpless and in need of a knight in shining armor to save the day, one can in fact be damseled just fine without any of the key fairytale hallmarks.

How does Welsknight know all this? Well, because he's managed to damsel himself, of course.

Welsknight is trapped. He should have known better. Well? Should he have known better? Eh. Even if he should have, he definitely shouldn't have expected to. He's new to Vault Hunting.

Iskall and Stress made it sound so easy. Yeah! Just go find a vault, gear up, don't be afraid to run for your life. Nothing can go wrong if you're careful. Beware the curses and traps and tripwires. Don't eat anything growing on the walls. Fight. Survive. Win! They do it all the time, with their adventuring teams and alone. Whatever suits their fancy. Just don't anger the gods and do run screaming if something way beyond your skill level wanders into the room. Cowardice? Nonsense! Vaults aren't duels, they're thrills. Thrills that sometimes glean cool treasure, and treasure, while awesome, can't challenge your honor and isn't worth your life. So go, kill some monsters, have fun, run when you need to. It's low-high stakes, choose your own adventuring at its finest!

And Wels is a knight errant, alright? He's slain dragons. And withers. And, yes, rescued a few damsels. He's good at what he does. So when he and Iskall went for some drinks at a local tavern, and Welsknight whined that he was getting bored of escorting mining parties and killing oversized lizards for neglectful nobles, well, Iskall had smiled and pointed him to the Vaultlands. And Welsknight, bored and stupid in his boredom, had decided raiding vaults was a great idea.

"If I get out of this," Welsknight vows in his most solemn, oath-binding knight's voice, "I am going to punch Iskall right in his grinning, stupid face."

He is barricading a door with anything he can find, all while the screams and shrieks of some persistent undead challenge his fervor from the other side. The undead here are different than they are outside the Vaults. The slow, lumbering, hollow things that amble blindly around deep caves and unstable mines don't hold a candle to these creatures. These are malevolent undead, things that seem to hate Welsknight personally, inhabited by the dreams of sleeping gods that were, probably, sealed in these Vaults for a freaking reason. He's pretty sure one of them is jibbering with the voice of his dead brother, which is, honestly, demonic scales of unfairness. And he would know demonic unfairness. Welsknight has fought exactly one demon, and while he certainly isn't an expert, he knows more about how much they cheat and torment than he had ever wanted to know. And anyway, how is he supposed to kill that kind of malevolence in the undead? He's not! For heaven's sake, he's faced fae with less personal malevolence, and the fae court is the most petty place on earth!

Welsknight kicks his barricade with an armored boot, making sure it'll hold. The stack of pilfered detritus shakes but stands firm. Somewhere in that lot is his broken sword, barring the door shut. The blade shattered in four pieces when he was tackled by some wight-creature, not because the creature was that strong, but because he'd just used it to fight some sort of corrosive slime, and really, the fact that living acid slime exists in the Vaults is unfair, and something Iskall really should've warned him about. At least it hadn't gotten on his armor.

Welsknight backs away from the barred door, listening to the angry screams of what lay beyond it. There's a lot of name-calling going on. "Come to your death, coward!" And "Brother please! Help me! Don't let it take me!" And "Sleep with us forever knight! Aren't you tired?" Screech and groan through the air as though the door and barricade aren't there to muffle it. There's hysterical cackling as well, which is kind of typical. He can't tell if the loudness of the noise is supernatural, or if it means there's another entrance to the room he hasn't noticed yet. As unsettling as the supernatural option is, he kind of prefers that right now. Weaponless and exhausted, he's not sure how well he'll manage if the undead just start pouring in from a side door somewhere.

Welsknight blinks, and belatedly realizes he's blinking back tears. His hands shake as he wipes them away. Yeah, okay, maybe the screaming-with-the-voice-of-his-dead-brother thing was getting to him more than he thought it would. He's a knight, not an iron golem. He still has feelings. He tries to be detached and gentle about it. He knows what fear is. The first time he fought a dragon, he cried. He cried a lot, actually. After it was dead he lay on the ground sobbing for a good hour, which had been terribly inconvenient at the time, since it had broken one of his ribs. Terror kind of just, does that to him -- makes him cry. He learned a long time ago not to be ashamed of it, no matter how badly timed it could be.

"Right," Welsknight croaks into the room around him. "Cry about it later. Escape now."

It's not a big room that he's trapped himself in. It has the trappings of an ancient hall, with some newness to it, indicating he isn't the first adventurer to stumble in here. Rotting boxes and chests are tumbled against a collapsed wall, the smell of damp rot wafting off them. One has candles and two plates on it, someone's makeshift dining set up, and there's the scorched remains of a campfire. It looks pathetic compared to the massive columns and reliefs it sits beneath. Maybe this place was a temple? It sure seems kind of temple-y, but Welsknight has yet to encounter an altar to any Vault Gods -- which is probably good. Iskall had mentioned those were guarded by scary creatures, and if "malevolent undead who steal the voices of your loved ones from your memories to torment you while they devour your flesh" hadn't registered on Iskall's "scary creatures to warn Wels about" index, he really, really doesn't want to know what insane creatures might guard the altar chambers of the Vault Gods.

"Probably like, undulating tentacle demons with acid breath," Welsknight mutters out loud as he meanders the chamber, searching for something useful. "Or maybe the Gods themselves just come down and use you as a hackey sack until you prove your worth or die. That sounds about right."

The cold stone walls make no comment, which is probably for the best, since given current trends, they would probably talk back with the voice of his disapproving parents, or maybe the old knight he'd been squired to, which would really start straining his already stressed out psyche right about now.

He can still hear his brother's voice calling to him through the door.

For as impressive as the room is, there really isn't much in here of use. The boxes from the old expedition have let the moisture in the room in. There's old, indecipherable food inside that is now mostly black sludge. The candles might be useful if he had anything resembling a tinderbox to light them with. Everything else in here is far older, and mostly carved stone too heavy to pilfer. This place has obviously been picked over before. No relics are on the walls. The one chest he finds that is (probably) older than the boxes contains only a single glorious cobweb as a prize. Welsknight has just about submitted to his fate to die in obscurity in a random Vault somewhere, when he encounters a corpse. It is not reanimated dead, though he does give it a few good kicks to make sure it doesn't feel like crawling to life and talking with ominous voices.

"Well, at least the ambient necromancy going on in here has limits," Welsknight sighs, squatting down on the balls of his feet to pick the corpse over. "Well, friend, I don't suppose you've got anything helpful on you?"

Their chainmail is rusted, their features, save for a few whisps of black-brown hair, are decayed away. He manages to find a coin purse with some woefully old looking coins -- so the chances of some other adventuring party stumbling to his rescue are quite small then. He picks up a shield from them that, though dry rotted, looks like it could block one or two more hits before giving up the ghost. On their back is a scabbard so rusted, it looks like the sword might be fused inside. Welsknight grimaces, then shrugs and concedes that even a brittle sword is better than none. Still, it doesn't make prying the sword belt off the old bones any more pleasant. There's a lot of brittle cracking, and a lot of wincing on Welsknight's part, before he finally manages to get it free.

"Sorry friend, but I think I need this a little more than you do."

The skull rocks a bit on the floor as it settles, but otherwise doesn't seem to care. The sockets aren't even facing his direction. Welsknight takes that as his sign that he isn't horribly cursed... Or at least no more so than when he first got trapped in here. Welsknight rubs at the blade, trying to see how much of the rust is superficial. A bit chips off beneath his fingernail, revealing bright silver beneath.

"A silver scabbard?" Welsknight raised his eyebrows at the corpse, "Well, weren't you a glamorous fellow?"

Welsknight grimaces and, taking ahold of the hilt, draws the sword. It pulls a lot easier than he thought it would. The rust holds it for a moment, and then smoothly releases, revealing bright steel underneath. The sword unsheathes with a ringing hiss.

"--ON'T SHEATH THE SWORD YOU IDIOT!"

The scream is right by his ear. Welsknight lets out a startled yelp and turns to face the voice, tripping over his feet and landing in an inglorious heap on the floor.

Standing in front of him is a knight garbed in black armor, a fiery plume rippling from his helm. His back is facing Welsknight, and he stands with his shoulders hunched, one arm reaching forward like he's trying to stop someone. The knight takes a step back, surprised, then rocks on his heels.

"Oh." He says, then looks down at the skeleton by his feet. "Oh."

He stares at the skeleton for a long moment, shrugs, and then gives the skull a hard kick, sending it clattering off across the room. "Serves you right, you asshole!"

Welsknight is crying again. He can't help it. He's scared and overwhelmed, and this knight is so, so terribly familiar. From the armor to the way he stands, to his voice. And when the knight turns to face him finally, the face is familiar too.

"Hels?" Welsknight whispers.

Helsknight, his definitely-dead brother, looks down at him with uncomprehending eyes. Then he scowls, "Nope. Sorry."

"I-- but--"

"I am the Spirit of the Sword," Helsknight cuts him off, rolling his eyes petulantly. "I serve the wielder of my blade, loyal in death, as I wasn't in -- blablabla. I take the form of the protector, the guardian, the comforting, and yes, I'm used to the whole "oh you look just like my dead loved one" thing. So let's skip the unnecessary angst, okay?"

A particularly loud shriek from the ghouls outside echoes shrilly through the room before Welsknight can even attempt to gather his response. Helsknight spins to face the barred door and takes a threatening step towards it.

"Oh would you SHUT UP? We're in the middle of something!"

The sounds behind the door fall abruptly silent. Welsknight stares in bafflement, feeling just confused enough to stop crying. The Spirit Of The Sword That Looks Just Like His Dead Brother offers a hand to him.

"Come on, get up." He says as he pulls Welsknight to his feet roughly, and then gives him a long, appraising look. "Well, you look like you might know how to swing my sword, so there's something at least."

"I'm-- I'm a knight errant," Welsknight tells him, trying to recover some of his senses. "What-- are you another trick of this terrible place?" Anger starts to bubble underneath everything else he's feeling, and his fists clench. "I'm tired of the stupid mind games and the trickery, and everything screaming like Hels and---!"

Helsknight holds up his hands, looking something between annoyed and appeasing. "Aye, yes, I understand. My last wielder did die in this Vault. No I'm not a demon, or an evil spirit -- unless you intend to use my sword for evil, in which case, I'm evil by proxy." Helsknight ushered to himself. "The enchantment in the blade turns me into something you're familiar with. Whoever I am, I don't have his memories or his mannerisms--" his lip curls in something like disgust as he adjusts his breastplate, "--or his taste in armor. Really, what's wrong with some nice high mobility chainmail? Or leather? Leather is amazing! It's quiet and doesn't feel like I'm carrying a whole damn armory around."

Welsknight screwed his eyes shut and breathed. Alright. Alright. He's okay. He can deal with this. He can-- well at least he can ignore the specter of his brother following him around for as long as it takes to get out of this Vault. But when he gets out ohhh, oh Iskall owes him six pints at the nearest tavern and a damn good explanation.

"Sword Spirit," Welsknight asks after another set of calming breaths, "can you fight?"

Helsknight looks down at his hip where a sword is sheathed. He draws it, tests its weight and shrugs. "I'd be a poor sword spirit if I couldn't."

"Alright then," Welsknight picks up the magical sword from where he'd dropped it and walks towards the barred door. "Let's get out of here, then."

Well, there is one good thing about being damseled at least, Welsknight thinks bitterly as Helsknight begins moving the debris. Someone always sends you a knight in shining armor.

[funky-fox-fics]

It would be fun to write a ghost story about a protagonist that disbelieves in the paranormal so hard that it stop existing around them.

They pick a soaking wet teenaged girl ghost in their cab and take her home. They pull up to the house and ghost girl looks longingly out before resigning herself to be sent back to the roadside.

Protagonist is just like, “so that’s $14.50.”

The ghost is surprised, she’s still there. She fumbles for cash but she didn’t die with any.

Does she feel oddly warmer than normal?

The seat more solid against her skin?

The protagonist sighs, “of course.”

They couldn’t just leave a teenage girl out there on the side of the road in the middle of the night, something bad could have happened to her. But he still had bills to pay.

“Come on. This is your parent’s house right? I’ll walk you in.”

For the first time in twenty years the ghost opens the car door and steps out onto the sidewalk.

The protagonist knocks on the front door and her parents, use to the midnight visits, wearyily open the door.

She starts to cry and hugs her parents tight. Apologizing for sneaking out. Babbling about what happened to her. How her friends had egged her into going deeper into the woods. How they had gotten separated. She’d fallen into a river.

Her parents are crying too. She finally made it home. They finally had confirmation of what happened to her. No body had been found so they were never truly sure.

The protagonist awkwardly interrupts, “so there’s still the matter of her cab fair...”

They don’t want to be insensitive but they need to get going and bills don’t pay themselves.

Eagerly her father rummages around in the pockets of his coat hanging by the door and pushing a twenty dollar bill into the protagonist’s hand. He knows it’s more than enough.

They thank the protagonist for bring her home, “keep the change,” they tell him.

As the protagonist gets in their cab and drives away the ghost can feel herself slipping away from life once more. But not back to the river and woods, waiting endlessly for someone to pull over and offer her a ride.

Her unfinished business is complete.

She’s moving on.

To somewhere warm and bright, she can feel it.

Her parents press final kisses to her cheeks as she starts to go. Through tears they whisper, I love you’s.

She’s finally at rest and there are no more stories of vanishing girls picked up off the backwoods roads

[funky-fox-fics]

I’m putting together a book of all the short comics I’ve drawn over the past year to have for sale at my spring conventions! Not sure what the title will be yet, but the uniting themes of all the stories seem to be Girls and Magic.

I drew this selkie comic really fast and it bounced all around tumblr which was cool, but the messy lettering and simple coloring bugged me so I cleaned it up a bit. 

[funky-fox-fics]

they say my professor used to be a fed. somehow through the nepotism he sat across the table from people deemed monsters given softer names; bureaucracy dulling all their edges until they fit the academic language of syllabic cages. the violent criminal apprehension project, it's called, and whispers claim my professor was a profiler.

he teaches creative writing now. wears age-softened leather and tweed. looks, for all the world, like a quietly mad poet who walked from a movie into the university's halls instead of diving into martyrdom. he smiles like a song bird and laughs like a ghost; he's the most real when students read their work aloud. he's the least real when we ask him to read his.

he gives us advice, sometimes, beyond the ways to bend words better to our craft, to our intentions, our visions. "never fall in love with someone who wants to save the world," he says. "never fall in love with prophets, messiahs. revolutionaries.

"they give so much, too much, to the world. they won't have enough left for you.

"you'll try to fill them," he says. "you'll try to replenish what they've lost with pieces of yourself, but they're too selfless. they'll always keep giving more away."

the whispers grow whenever a disappearance leaves a bloody shadow. whenever his door locks behind people from administration. the whispers twist, darkening like the bags under his eyes.

sometimes, the missing person comes back. sometimes, my professor stands silent in our classroom, staring at his hands.

no matter what we say, he shakes his head. tells us, "revolution is an act of love. with the risk of appearing ridiculous." he always smiles here, empty. "with the risk of appearing ridiculous," he repeats. "there's nothing in it unless the core of it is love."

we ask what he means. what he's talking about. he shakes his head again. "don't dirty yourself to keep your prophet bright," he says. "your hands might be bloody but make the deeds your own. don't hold someone else's sins by proxy."

we ask if he's religious, one day, when the sun makes the leaves burn like emerald fire, when my professor looks alive. he chuckles and it sounds like wind through a gorge. "who was the savior, jesus as a god, or as a man?"

we don't ask about his past. we don't ask if he sat across from serial killers, if he ever got answers too late, if he ever found bodies when he was looking for breathing; the ghosts cling to him. wind themselves through his hair. the hallways whisper, even when nobody's there.

his hands shake when someone reads their piece, a character study on judas. on loving a piece of glass, of silver mirror, a reflection of g-d and man. we don't ask.

that student brings a story about a hunter and a bluejay next class instead; set in winter, the snow in the story leeches any warmth or passion from the words. my professor comments on the bluejay's perspective.

we don't ask.

the next day, he gives us another piece of advice. "your bread will turn to stone," he tells us, "if you become a wilderness. the prophets stay forty days and forty nights. but they always leave."

one day, he cries. i don't know what caused it. i don't think any of us do. maybe a name, a memory, something conjured in a piece someone shared—but why hardly matters. his face shattered and his eyes reflected the sky and he broke open. he knelt and wept like bleeding, wept like a wound.

we sat in silence. watched. like hungry parishioners and this was communion.

"i cannot pen more hymns," he says. "i cannot write more gospels. not when each other disciple—each other brother—has followed you, waiting, where i cannot." his voice breaks. none of us move. some of us might not have breathed.

my professor presses his forehead to the floor.

"john," i say. "you've finished. you have no more to give."

he looks up and his eyes are too old to see me.

"you can rest." i look to my classmates because i can't look at him. "someone else will continue the story."

they say my professor used to be a fed. that he spoke to monsters with a straight face. they don't know he's spoken to much more important. that you can't flinch from the light once you've already been blinded.

[funky-fox-fics]

Your roommate is so bad at pretending to be a human, you’ve started to just automatically back him up in public. Tonight he tells you how nice it is to know the only other alien in the city, and you have to break the bad news

[funky-fox-fics]

“The Abbot and the Scribe”.

I’ve always loved stories of inappropriate marginalia on medieval manuscripts and that’s whay I started thinking about this tale. It ended up being a fable about How to Kill a Mary Sue, I think. It comes from the vault of past Secret Knots too, I hope you like it.

[funky-fox-fics]

idk if u were serious about the fluff prompts but uh...................... sure. let's think of cute fluffy things. for some reason i've got winter on the brain. it's october. I'm not doing hot chocolate I'm NOT because if I do hot chocolate i'll just start thinking about Christmas and then my ideas won't have any variety-

snow

literal sleeping together (my favorite tag ever forever)

sweet

movies

music

sunset

flowers

warmth

gifts

author's note: hello anon! i was being serious about the fluff prompts. those are a lot of prompts, so i put them in a spinner and came out with sunset! also you get hot chocolate as a bonus.

The crisp October breeze rattles through the trees, shaking their branches and whisking away the leaves like a child playing. It's a good wind, all things considered; Impulse soars along on it, wings catching the wind and twitching in response to the slightest change.

(He's very glad for elytrian bugs; he's always awed by the way Skizz does it, even with poking into his mind. It must be an avian thing--it's a thousand little calculations and observations, always running at the corner of his mind, and Skizz doesn't even pay attention to them unless Impulse calls them out.)

It's amazing, Skizz says, and Impulse pokes into his head to see that he's having dinner--pizza in his starter base. It's cheese, Skizz adds mildly, a hum of thoughts in the background delighting at the taste of it.

I don't mind cheese, Impulse conveys. He'd been heading back from the Shopping District, decided to do a fly-around, and the day's over now--there's no harm in a sleepover or something. Hold on, I'm right at your pyramid, gimme a moment.

He does one final circle around it, marveling at the gradient work--for someone who puts no stock in their building ability, it's pretty good--and then he flies straight toward where Skizz's base is. He barely even needs to take full control of his body. Skizz slips into the cracks, filling in Impulse's earthbound heritage with his own knowledge of flying, his own knowledge of his base.

Impulse lands, and the door behind him is wide open, showcasing a beautiful view of the sunset. The dusk paints the sky with gold and oranges, fading into pinks and purples and then into a dark blue near where the moon will rise. Still the sun reaches out with its rays of light like hands and trails them along the edge of the house, each stalactite, like a goddess taking her world into her hands at the end of its initial creation.

Skizz is there beside him, and the low hum of his thoughts is the only sound between them. The sun is setting, and it is downright beautiful. Impulse would've missed it in his bright city, where the sky doesn't change colors except for blue to black. But here there's less harsh light, an open door to see the sky through.

A soft awe-wonder-love passes through the bond, through the silence. Aren't the sunsets here beautiful? Skizz whispers in the backs of their minds, like if he speaks out loud the spell will break and the sky will become just a normal sky again, dark and starless and shadowed.

Beyond them, a crow darts across the grass, and with a rough and easy cry it launches itself into the air and swoops away.

The spell--if it was a spell, if the spell was just that beautifully unbroken silence--is broken. Impulse turns back to Skizz, who's absently holding his pizza and still watching the sun set.

Pizza? Impulse nudges against Skizz's mind, which is gold and orange and pink and purple and blue blue blue.

Right, Skizz says, shaking himself, turning back. I've also got hot chocolate. We can watch a bad Christmas movie later?

It's almost Halloween.

Fine then. IT?

Impulse laughs and nods, though whether it's only in their heads or also physically he doesn't know.

(That's the fun thing about being a binary. At the end of the day, it's so much easier to just have someone get what you're saying, you barely need physical bodies at all. The difference between physicality and mentality becomes blurred. Both of them know what's happening in both realms, so the line doesn't really matter. It's nice.)

They head into Skizz's kitchen for some pizza and hot chocolate. Through the window in there, the sun still sets, and the stars begin to come out.

[funky-fox-fics]

Jimmy and Martyn lie, side-by-side, flat on their backs. They stare at the sky together.

"So," Jimmy says.

"So," Martyn says back.

"I mean, it's not like we didn't see this coming," Jimmy says. "I'm just saying. I'm just saying."

"Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, walking off the world into the void, a bit embarrassing and painful, that, but this has been coming since day one," Martyn agrees.

"And I mean, well, I'm me. Sort of stupid to go fight the dragon, isn't it?"

"I mean, at least you actually fought the dragon."

"Barely."

"Hah, yeah, you're right. Barely."

They remain lying flat on their backs. A star streaks across the sky. Jimmy considers wishing on it, but then figures he'll let Martyn do any wishing. Honestly, he seems to need it more. He's been sort of just sad since day one. On Jimmy's front, if it's going to happen, it'll just... happen. He's learned to live with that, almost.

Still stings, and he hasn't quite learned to live with it, but...

They're silent for a bit.

"You know, actually, this is normally the part of the game where I'm ready to start killing people," Martyn says conversationally. "I bet a lot of people are real scared right now. I'm a tricky bastard, and besides, it's not like we have another void to fall into now."

"Oh, good, because no one's scared of me," Jimmy says. "Also, you know, I don't really feel like killing anyone? I've never been good at that, the whole killing thing, though."

Martyn snorts. "That you aren't."

"Rude."

Another star streaks by. This time, Jimmy goes ahead and makes a wish: if it's going to happen again, he lasts as long as he can, and then everyone goes all at once. It's a silly wish. It won't happen. Not with so many people still green, it won't.

He's just...

"I'm not any good at killing, but I don't even feel a bit of the bloodlust, actually," Jimmy says.

"Yeah, me neither," admits Martyn.

"Just feel tired, mostly."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Huh. You know, I've got to say, I'm pretty tired as well."

Jimmy finally turns to look at Martyn instead of the stars. Flecks of void dance across his fingers, but Martyn's still looking skyward.

"Is it weird that we're tired instead of wanting to kill folks, you reckon?"

"Nah," Martyn says. "Think this is just a new way to make us do it."

Jimmy's not sure he really knows what Martyn means by that, but since he's never been much of a killer, he decides he won't say as much. Maybe Martyn understands what's going on better than Jimmy. Jimmy, however, thinks that the exhaustion isn't any kind of trick to get them to kill at all. They don't need a trick; they just need tasks.

Jimmy thinks the exhaustion is just being tired.

Gods know he's been tired for a while now.

Another star streaks by. Quick, and then all of them at once, he thinks. Quick, then all of them at once.

[funky-fox-fics]

and a yellow moon glowed bright

Years later, when Ivypool herself is only a memory and before she’s completely lost to time, she’ll look over ThunderClan, wherever they might be, and still look for her daughter in every face.

The stories have it wrong already, and the truth will be dust before long. Bristlefrost isn’t alive in their memories. She’s twice-dead, drowned in black, choking water, a light snuffed out too soon. Bristlefrost was the prodigy — the daughter cats dreamed of, the first to find her voice and her paws, the leader of her siblings, the apprentice who did not graduate even earlier than she did because there was no prey in the forest to be found, not because of any failings on her part.

Cats starved, that long winter. Not Bristlefrost. Never her daughter, her clever, resourceful last-born. And she had once occupied this spot, designated for deputies, even though she’d never had an apprentice of her own. Would never have an apprentice of her own, now, even though she deserved it more than anything. Even though she’d deserved to stay deputy, but had given the role over with a smile, no hint of dark ambition in her gaze.

Ivypool steps into the deputy position under a brand-new leader with a whisper instead of a bang, the pounding of blood in her ears the only reminder that cats had been here before — that cats had died here before, and that Bramblestar’s first deputy becoming leader was a fluke, an odd quirk of fate. It hasn’t been done in living memory, nor long before that. Leaders do not usually step down, and when they do, they rarely stay with their Clan, or even within reach of their territory. First deputies do not often become leaders in turn. Usually this event is a bittersweet one, with a body or bodies laid out in the clearing, their eyes closed swiftly to avoid the rigor of after-death, but this is almost-peaceful, with only the murmurs of those who could not easily accept change as detractors.

Ivypool will die long before Squirrelstar. She’s—surprisingly okay with this, but she thinks she’s been at peace with her death since before Hollyleaf had stepped between her and a deathblow from one of the only friends she’d ever had.

(“You were my friend!” Ivypool screams in her worst nightmares, Hollyleaf’s blood dripping from her pelt.

“I was never anyone’s friend,” Hawkfrost murmurs in return, something aching-sad in his voice, Hollyleaf’s lifeless form pinned under his claws. “I was born to what I am. We’re the same, you and I.” He pushes the black cat away from his paws with disgust — not for the body, but for Ivypool herself. Blood bubbles from the horrible wound at the corpse’s throat. “She should have been the one,” he says sometimes, in the ones that shatter her already pieced-together heart. “She died in your place.”

“I know,” Ivypool says, and she does know — she knows it more than anyone else alive.)

“It should have been Hollyleaf,” she says to Squirrelstar, quietly, at the end of one of their dusk meetings.

Sorrow flashes in Squirrelstar’s gaze, but it’s buried as soon as it comes. “It’s you,” she says. “It has always been you.”

It is not a truth — not in the way Ivypool remembers them from her childhood — but it is not a lie, either. Hollyleaf chose her, in the way dying deputies might choose their successor. She is always an echo of another cat burned by starlight. It is a comfort, sometimes. In others, she begs the spirit who’d saved her life for mercy, for clemency, until she runs out of breath.

(“I’ll find her,” whispers a voice Ivypool had almost forgotten, in dreams she forgets as soon as she wakes. “I’ll walk the skies ceaselessly, I promise you.”

But there is no bringing Bristlefrost back, and a part of Ivypool has died with her.)

When Ivypool wakes, her Clanmates breathe around her, steadying her rabbit-quick heart. Fernsong’s tail wraps snugly around her flank, Thriftear curled only one nest behind, and she does not lose her breath at the way Flipclaw’s dark tabby stripes curl over his spine. She hasn’t in a long time, she knows, but the impulse is there, sharp as ice underneath her ribs.

(She’d once thought his brown tabby pelt a punishment from the stars. She loves her son, would give her life for him, but the feeling that StarClan may have meted some punishment down in the shade of his pelt remains long after he’s received his warrior name.

She’d begged Bramblestar to give him a suffix that was as unassumingly kind and silly as her son always was. Instead he’d given him -claw, as if to remind her of her failings. She is not sorry to see his form slip into the elders’ den, bereft of the nine lives he’d once so jealously hoarded.)

[funky-fox-fics]

From time to time, Pearl rather thinks people make things too complicated.

Her fellow rulers especially tend to do this. For example: Sausage was possessed, but he was hurting. (He asked for help.) He and Gem won’t look each other in the eyes anymore, and Sausage joked about asking Gem to kill him again. Sausage isn’t possessed anymore and is pretending he’s not hurting.

If it were Pearl, she’d be a bit more direct—she’d have the two of them stand in that arena (or, well, maybe somewhere else, considering) and either fight out their feelings or talk them out. From there it would be easy to sort out things like “forgiveness” and “guilt”. Once you’ve seen someone bleed there’s something in you that remembers they’re a human too.

People make things too complicated; everyone is a human who can prove themselves again. (And he was tired, and he was hurting.)

Pearl thinks she’s seen Xonorth bleed though, is the thing, and she wonders—

The facts she knows are as follows.

1. He hurt her friends, and he hurt her kingdom.

2. He bleeds like a human, should you try hard enough.

3. Sausage is only pretending not to still be in pain.

4. He was fun, in a way no one else quite manages to be. He understood in some way the way Pearl’s brain operates.

5. Shubble cries sometimes about her dead homeland.

6. Scott doesn’t meet anyone in the eyes when talking about his brother.

7. Sometimes, people do stupid things when they’re lonely.

People make things too complicated, she thinks, watching Joey’s fingers wrap around a crown, and Scott carefully lift a red gemstone into his pocket, and Gem celebrate as Katherine washes Joey’s blood apologetically off her sword. People make things too complicated, but—

But sometimes the world is complicated, and Pearl can make them complicated too. Even when her feelings are simple, and easy to sort through, together, they can get awfully complicated.

She tells her advisors: she doesn’t know what to feel. It doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel right. And he’d been fun, for all he was terrible. (And he was tired, and he was hurting, and she thinks she saw him bleed.) (She wonders if he ever asked for help.) No amount of harvesting her crops or repairing her farms or fighting monsters at night will change that. Nothing can fix the fact that things have gotten complicated.

And she can’t help but wonder what complicated means when she’s supposed to be celebrating.

[funky-fox-fics]

Tango's half-asleep in a cabin he's sharing with Impulse and Skizz and Joker and Zed. It's been loud the past few days as they set up. Most of them plan on being busy during the break, so they won't all be sharing it that often, but they'd needed a place to crash when they weren't busy doing other things. Impulse had offered to let them stay in the Vault Hunters server, but it's practically tradition, shacking up together in a cabin in the woods and pretending no one can get to them. It's rare that they use the cabin for more than a few weeks--rare any of them need it for that long--but it's nice. Traditional. Useful to drag each other to when they get too workaholic.

Honestly, Tango's just been napping. He'd gotten Decked Out to a place it could be run alone, and then he'd gotten decoupled from Decked Out in a process he doesn't really want to talk about that sort of melted his brain out his ears again. He'd gotten yelled at for getting possessed again, and hugged, and then told to describe in exhaustive detail what being possessed was like because as much as Tango loves his friends, neither Zedaph nor Impulse are like, normal about things like that, and--

Tango's legs had barely worked during the end-of-season party. Turns out being part of a machine for like, three months, has an effect on the body when you're removed from it! Haha. Who would have guessed? He'd shared some drinks with the hermits, conspicuously avoiding alcohol on account of the room spinning enough without it, and then told Impulse he had to leave for his own good, please, Pearl could drink him and Gem under the table stop trying to prove otherwise, and they'd departed.

And Tango had taken a nap. And another nap. And... wait for it... another nap.

It's supposed to be a longer break this season. Tango is contemplating napping for at least a month. He deserves it. For him.

Anyway, he's half-asleep in the cabin, halfway still snoozing and quarter of the way catching up on the technical journals he hadn't been reading while he was Decked Out, and quarter of the way remembering how like, fingers work when they're not being puppeted by a massive death machine of his own design, when he catches a look at the time and date, pauses, and realizes something.

"I forgot," he mumbles. "Huh."

He waits a moment for the howling of the absence Decked Out's wind to be replaced with eerie, indescribable silence, like the world had been replaced for months at the start of the season whenever he saw a reminder. The thing is, though, he's just--he's too tired to grieve more. Tired, and satisfied with his work, and he's safely in a cabin in the woods where Skizzleman is sleeping in the bunk above him, snoring with a loudness only Skizz possesses. His brain is still halfway leaking out of his ears and he still sort of craves raw meat. His tongue is real, by the way. He keeps noticing it? His tongue is real? Man, he'd say he doesn't recommend getting possessed, but he's totally going to do it again, and--

"I forgot," he says again, testing out the word against his lips. "The day I died passed and I forgot about it."

Huh.

He waits a few more minutes for the panic to claw at his chest. It strikes him then, though, that it hasn't for some time, and some of that may have been his brain being used as a processing chip for Decked Out in equal measure with like, being his brain, so he didn't have room for that, but. Even before then. Even in the moments he was the most himself.

Huh.

"Toppers?" Skizz asks from the top bunk. "What are you doing awake, huh? It's, uh--dark, I don't know what time it is, I broke my clock."

"My sleep schedule broke during the Decked Out thing," Tango says, "I told you that."

"Yeah, but like--did you have a nightmare about evil cows or something?"

"Evil--what do you think Decked Out is?"

"I was there! I know what it is!" Skizz says. He pauses a moment. "If you need something..."

Tango lies back and thinks of his friends. They were smiling as they left, this season.

"No, I'm fine. Don't worry about it. It's just that it's 1 AM on the 23rd, is all."

"Oh, man, that late?"

Tango laughs. "Yeah. That late."

He means something different than Skizz.

"Do you think ghosts eat people more if they're sleep-deprived?"

"You are actively going to make it worse for yourself. Also, wait, did you say you broke your clock? How?"

"No, listen--"

He's late.

That's alright.

He'll always have time later.

[funky-fox-fics]

You are working the gate in the afterlife and for the first time ever, something the humans built has shown up to be processed. You’re not sure what to do, this… entity shouldn’t have a soul, but here it is in front of you, freshly dead and awaiting the next life.

[funky-fox-fics]

a short comic about witches and wishes and wanting things.

(all my comics are here!)