#background Dadcher

[shadowthrone-ammanas]

well hat kid got her ghost dad to therapy now to get her bird? uncle to go too, actually both bird uncles because grooves has some stuff to work out too

Thank you for the request! Obviously a sequel to the Snatcher goes to therapy drabble called Therapy.

Double Therapy

“Uncle Grooves!” Hat Kid called as she poked her head into Grooves’ dressing room. Why she insisted on thinking of him as an uncle he still wasn’t sure and had long since given up trying to get her to stop.

“Hello darling,” he said, lowering his coffee cup. “Come on in I guess.” He didn’t mind his break being disturbed by her.

With a large smile she hopped in and pulled the door closed behind. “All right so a few weeks ago I convinced Snatcher to go to therapy in the little town just outside the forest. I kind of had to almost threaten to cry to get him to go but he did and he’s gone every week since. Which isn’t many yet but still good especially since I think it might be helping him, even if it’s not a whole lot yet. But anyway because of how well that’s working out I realized he’s not the only one who needs therapy. Which is what brought me here, I need you to help me convince the Conductor to start going to therapy.”

First off, the thought of the infamous soul eating Snatcher going to therapy was comical. The fact that he’d adopted Hat Kid and was supposedly being a decent father to her was already the kind of thing Grooves would’ve never believed in a million years if it hadn’t been Hat Kid telling him about it. Second, Grooves couldn’t believe he never thought to convince the Conductor to seek professional help because he needed it; he’d been through some things and was handling it and life in general less than well. So…

“Of course I’ll help with that,” he said as he got up from his chair. He quickly downed the last bit of his coffee before putting the mug back on the table, he’d deal with putting it away later. “He should be in his dressing room so let’s go have a chat with him.”

Hat Kid stepped out with him and stuck by his side as they made their way over to the other side of the studio. The owls glanced up as they crossed the border but didn’t approach. They were used to Grooves coming over by now because of the collab movies he and the Conductor had worked on, there were even plans for another in the idea stage, not yet public though there were no doubt rumors floating around.

When they reached the dressing room door, Grooves knocked. He and the Conductor had unofficially established specific knocking patterns to identify themselves without words so they wouldn’t have to ask when they visited each other.

“Come in,” the Conductor called through the door.

“Hey,” Grooves said as he stepped in with Hat Kid, letting her close the door. “How’s your day been so far Con darling?”

The Conductor was seated at the table, facing the wall. He had a cup of coffee in his hand and a bottle of whiskey on the table in front of him, implying the coffee was probably spiked. “Eh, ‘bout as good as one could expect I guess,” he said with a shrug before taking a drink from the mug. “But hey little lass, good to see you again.”

“Hello Uncle Con.” Hat Kid raised a hand to give him a small wave before skipping over to sit next to him at the head of the table. Grooves followed suit, sitting across from him. How this conversation would go he had no idea so he’d let Hat Kid lead, it was her idea after all.

“So,” she began, “I convinced Snatcher to start going to therapy. He’s been going every week for a few weeks now and it seems to be helping. It’s fantastic. I think you start going too.”

“Uh… me?” The Conductor gave her an incredulous look as he lifted a hand to point to himself.

“Yep. I think you could really benefit from some professional help.”

“Why?”

“Because you need it,” Grooves answered for her because he was much more aware of the Conductor problems and how poorly he was doing. “You’ve been through a lot and…”

“I don’t need therapy,” the Conductor interrupted. “I’m perfectly fine and well adjusted. All I need is me train and I’m happy.” He took another drink from his mug.

“Uh… Con darling, you know that’s a lie, a poor one too. I’m not going to go into details about stuff that you’ve done or about the kind of thoughts I’m pretty sure you sometimes have, not while the little girl is here listening but you know the kind of things I’m thinking about.” All the drinking, frequently to the point of passing out. Which sometimes happened on the train tracks if front of his train, whether those times were intentional or he just happened to fall there was impossible to know but with the amount of times it happened the former definitely had to be the case sometimes. Especially when considering the occasional dangerous stunt that could’ve easily ended with at least the Conductor dead, probably more too. And perhaps least of all but still not good, the comments about life not being worth living without his train or words that indicated he thought he’d be better off dead or that everyone else would be happier if he died.

Grooves had wanted to help him for a long time, especially ever since they’d started working together and were more friends than rivals now. He’d always cared about the Conductor, initially as a friend but lately perhaps something as a bit more. Why he’d never thought to suggest therapy was probably a sign of how little experience he had in such matters. But thankfully Hat Kid was here to do it instead, she was a smart kid.

“So please,” Grooves said “for me?”

The Conductor scoffed. “As if I’d do anything for you.” He still liked to put on a front of not liking Grooves sometimes, normally when it came up somehow, even though no one in the studio would ever believe it anymore.

“For me then?” Hat Kid cut in.

The Conductor frowned at her. “Why are you both so insistent on this?”

“Because we care about you,” Grooves replied. He wasn’t afraid to admit it, though he wasn’t ready to admit in just what way he cared about the Conductor.

The Conductor put down his mug and crossed his arms as he slouched back into his chair. He pouted in silence for a few seconds before finally speaking. “Fine, I’ll go to therapy but only if Grooves starts going to.”

Grooves opened his mouth to respond but Hat Kid beat him to it. “Perfect,” she said. “After we were done convincing you to go, I was going to ask you to help convince him to go too. So?” She turned to look at Grooves, smiling wide.

“I don’t need therapy though.”

“Really huh?” the Conductor said. “You were so upset about losing so many times in a row that you let a magic hour glass get to you head, leading to you trying to kill a child. You even stole a bomb from me set to do it. Who knows what might’ve happened if I hadn’t run in and defused it?”

Grooves flinched, that was true. It was mostly the Time Piece’s fault though and little to do with him… right?

“At least I never did anything like that,” the Conductor continued with a smugness that was irritating especially since it wasn’t true.

“Yeah sure, you almost blew up your train with her and a bunch of owls on it because you trying to kill yourself. And let’s not even mention the contract you signed with the Snatcher to try to kill her. So don’t go saying you never did anything like that.”

“That first one was a stunt for a movie and the second one I had no choice and you signed the exact same pecking contract, meaning you tried to kill her twice. So don’t you pecking…”

“Stop it!” Hat Kid slammed both palms down on the desk as she stood up. “You guys are friends now so no more fighting. You both need therapy because you both aren’t okay. I don’t know any of even the broad details of it like I do with my dad but I know you both aren’t in a completely good place mentally right now so I want you both to start going to therapy, okay?”

Grooves sighed as he relaxed back into his chair, ashamed of the things he’d said so…

“Fine, I’ll go,” he said in near unison with the Conductor. He paused and turned his head to look at the Conductor was doing the exact same thing. Turns out it wasn’t either of them convincing the other to go to therapy like Hat Kid had wanted but just Hat Kid convincing them both at the same time.

Hat Kid let out an audible relieved sigh as she lowered herself back into her chair. “There we go, thank you. I actually have you both booked for appointments on the weekend.” She pulled out two small sheets of paper and handed one to the Conductor, the other to Grooves.

It had a date, time, and location printed on it. Grooves pocketed it with a sigh. Maybe he really did need professional help. He didn’t have it as bad as the Conductor but that didn’t necessarily mean he had it good. So perhaps they did both need help. … Even if he didn’t though it couldn’t hurt and it’d be worth the hassle if it meant the Conductor would stick to going too.

“Thanks lass,” the Conductor grumbled as he pocketed his slip of paper too. “But uh… anyway, ‘bout your dad, how’d you convince him to go, he don’t seem the type to agree to that kind of thing.”

“I had to beg him and threaten to cry if he didn’t. Now I just need to convince Mu and the Captain to seek professional help and everyone I care about well hopefully be getting the help they need. And then they can get better and hopefully be truly happy again.”

What about her though? Hadn’t she been though a lot too? More than Grooves could probably ever guess. Surely, she needed the help of a therapist too. … Maybe she was seeing one? Maybe that’s what led her to convincing Snatcher and then from there the two of them to go? Grooves would have to somehow find out for sure later. If she wasn’t, he wasn’t sure what he’d do exactly but he try to help her if he could.

For this drabble event.

[shadowthrone-ammanas]

if it’s not too much trouble, writing prompt: bow meeting and befriending moonjumper, pretty please i just really want this to exist now, i want all the kiddos getting adopted and moon and bow stuff is cute but rare. oh or just snatcher finding out moonjumper has essentially adopted bow like how he totally absolutely has not done with hat kid ; which ever you prefer, if you want to do either that is

Thank you for the request! I tried to kinda do both. I imagine Bow befriending Moonjumper is probably a process that takes a while, thus not something that can take place in a drabble, so I just wrote their first meeting and then cut to Moonjumper going to Snatcher and being and ‘Bow is my kid now.’ I hope that’s okay, sorry if it’s not what you wanted.

Bow Kid

When the first alien child had wondered into Subcon Forest, Moonjumper had been sleeping. His tendency to take long naps when bored led to him not becoming aware of her presence until her first battle with Snatcher. Which was way too late for a dramatic mysterious entrance so he’d decided just to not make one at all. He might’ve acted differently if he’d known Hat Kid was going to come around a lot to hang with Snatcher but it was too late.

But now there was another alien child entering the forest. She was perhaps looking for Hat Kid since her ship up in the sky looked similar to Hat Kid’s. Or maybe it was just some weird coincidence. Either way it had been way too long since Moonjumper had caused trouble, it was finally time to do so.

First, he shielded her from Snatcher’s senses. Next, he silently disarmed the trap on the path she was heading down. He wasn’t going to let Snatcher interfere with his game because he was here to interfere with Snatcher’s games.

Focusing his magic, he cast some illusions around the child. The trees, grass and everything else faded to shades of grey. The forest sounds dimmed and left behind eerie silence. She stopped of course, glancing around frightened. She didn’t try to run though even as thick impenetrable fog rolled in from the forest to surround her, stopping a couple feet away.

Manipulating her perception of the moon was next. Full, bright and twice bigger than normal, it shone down on her; the only thing visible through the gap in the fog. She looked up at it of course which was his que to partially exit the horizon and come down to greet her, making it appear as if he were traveling through the moonbeams to do so.

“Hello young one,” he said with a slight bow as he settled to float in front of her, a foot or so off the ground

“Uh… hi,” she said, nervous but standing her ground. She was very brave for a child, he liked her already. “Who are you?”

“You may call me Moonjumper for that is my name. I hail from the horizon.”

“You may call me ‘Bow’ because… that’s what people call me. Though, some of the people here call me ‘Bow Kid’. I hail from another planet and uh… I come seeking my friend. She’s about the same size as me, wears a top hat, and is a little bit crazy sometimes and likes to do dangerous stuff and get in trouble. People on this planet call her ‘Hat Kid’ and they said she likes to spend time in the forest with some big bad ghost guy. Which is totally something she’d do. Do you know where she is?”

“Alas, I don’t.” Not exactly anyway. She was doing contracts with Snatcher, that’s all he knew. “I can perhaps help you find her if you join me on the horizon. You can see a lot from up here if you know where to look.”

Bow’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Is this some kind of trap? You’re going to lure me to this horizon place and then do something bad to me?”

Moonjumper put a hand to his chest as if taken back in offense. “I would never harm a child.” And he wasn’t going to harm her, not yet anyway, he was just going to use her to cause whatever chaos he could until he got bored. Even then, he might just let her go, depending no how he felt when he grew tired of manipulating her. “I just want to help you find your dear friend. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have the kind of friend you’d travel across the very galaxy itself to reunite with.”

“You sound lonely.”

“I am very lonely. That’s just the nature of my existence though, do not worry about me. But would you like me to help you find your friend or have you chosen to view me as completely and totally untrustworthy?”

“Hmmm… okay, I’ll go with you. But if you try anything, I won’t hesitate to beat you up.” Oh? Tough talk for anyone, especially a kid. It was a nice change of pace from the frightened wimps Moonjumper normally found to play with. This game was going to be fun.

“Fair enough. Now let’s go, shall we?”

***

“Lukas.”

Snatcher grimaced as Moonjumper floated into his hollow. “What do you want?” he said as he lowered his book.

Moonjumper grinned. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

“What makes you think I’d do you a favor?”

“Calm down now, you don’t know what it even is yet. So let me tell you before you get your jimmies all rustled.” Ugh, his recent adoption of the kids’ slang only made Snatcher want to slap him more than usual. He didn’t even know how to use it right half the time. “I would like for you to write me up some adoption papers please.”

“’Adoption papers’? Who the peck are you adopting?”

“Bow of course. Who else?”

Snatcher could not believe what he was hearing. He’d known Bow had befriended Moonjumper, truly befriended him. How was a mystery, why even more so because it was Moonjumper, but this was a whole other level of strange.

“You’re not fit to be a parent,” Snatcher said. “Even to someone like Bow. All you ever do is cause chaos.”

“Yep. She loves chaos. I’m teaching her everything I know about creating it.” Moonjumper’s voice was full of genuine fondness. He actually cared about her, there was no way he’d fake something like that for this long. And he was teaching her his ways.

Great, just what the world needed; Bow being even better at causing problems and with Moonjumper backing her up and assisting her. At least it wasn’t Hat Kid he was teaching because as bad as Bow could be at times, she was nothing compared to Hat Kid when Hat Kid was at her most feral. Bow at least had a voice of reason buried somewhere in her mind.

“So,” Moonjumper continued. “Adoption papers?”

Well, him adopting Bow would only be an official thing by now. Nothing would change. They’d just have a piece of paper that said Moonjumper was her legal guardian. So refusing to draft up the papers wouldn’t do anything but…

“Why are you asking me? I’m pretty sure the knowledge you have from possessing my corpse is more than enough for you to make your own adoption papers.”

“Yes, but I like your handwriting, it’s neat. I can’t replicate it because you didn’t write like that when you were alive. Besides, I’m hoping to put the idea in your mind so that maybe you’ll finally officially adopt Hat Kid. You’ve had her longer than I’ve had Bow and I think it’s finally time you…”

“Uh… no,” Snatcher interrupted. “I’m not adopting Hat Kid. I don’t even want to, she’s annoying.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t love her though. And you’ve always wanted a daughter, when you were alive anyway. I don’t think that’s changed even if you say it has.”

Snatcher glared at him, wishing he could banish him back to the horizon where he belonged. But that would upset Bow which would in turn upset Hat Kid because Bow was her best friend and he wasn’t in the mood to deal with Hat Kid being mad at him. So… “Fine, I’ll write you up some stupid adoption papers but only if you agree to leave me alone.”

“Okay, deal. But do think about adopting Hat Kid officially, she deserves it.” With that, Moonjumper vanished.

Snatcher scowled at the empty space he’d left behind. Like hell he was going to consider adopting Hat Kid. Moonjumper could adopt her since he seemed to be into adopting feral alien children anyway. Or Cooking Cat, she’d adopted Mu so she already had one feral child, she could have Hat Kid too. Snatcher certainly didn’t want her.

For this drabble event.

[shadowthrone-ammanas]

prompt: AHiT cast, Bad Movie/Game night. Hat Kid and Bow Kid have very little cultural context for anything there, being aliens, so the bad media is even MORE bafflingly hilariously bad for them

Thank you for the request!

Bad Movies

The last time Mu had had a sleepover had been before the Mafia came to the island. She didn’t like to remember those times, doing so only made her sad. As a result, she barely remembered what it was like to have a sleepover or what she’d done during them.

But she was having one now. It had been Cooking Cat’s idea. Why she’d thought of it or suggested it was a mystery. But Mu had been so excited by the idea and reminder that she could have a sleepover now that she’d gone ahead and invited Hat Kid and Bow over before even figuring out what they would do for it. And now the two of them were due in two hours – they’d probably arrive before then though because they always showed up early whenever they agreed to be somewhere at a certain time – and Mu still wasn’t sure how they should spend the time. So…

“Uh… what do people normally do during sleepovers?” she asked Cooking Cat in the kitchen. “I forgot.”

Cooking Cat gave her a sad look but thankfully didn’t say anything about it. “Well, when I was young and went to friends’ houses to spend the night or just hang out for as long as we were allowed, we liked to watch bad movies. The kind of bad movies that are so bad they’re funny.”

“Oh, that sounds perfect. Do we have any?”

“Hmm… I think we might. If not, I can hop down to the store real quick and get some.”

“You’re the best.”

 -

Hat Kid and Bow did indeed arrive early but not until after Cooking Cat returned from the store with a large handful of movies. Most of them had the bargain bin sticker on them. Some were legit good movies though, in Mu’s opinion anyway. But what did she know? Up until Cooking Cat took her in, her only way of watching movies was sneaking into the theater which she didn’t dare risk often.

“Oh, that’s a lot of movies,” Hat Kid said when Mu showed them to her and Bow. “I’ve been meaning to watch more movies from this planet ever since Snatcher made me watch Mulan and Lilo and Stitch with him.”

“He did what?” Mu couldn’t picture a being a like Snatcher watching movies at all, let alone those particular ones.

“It’s a long story.” Hat Kid waved it off.

“He was drunk, like very drunk,” Bow added. “I wasn’t there but Moonjumper told me all about it later. But anyway, let’s watch some movies! I haven’t actually seen any yet so I’m excited.”

With a giant bowl of popcorn, the three of them settled down on the sofa in the living room to watch movies. True to Cooking Cat’s words, the first movie quickly turned out to be a ‘so bad it’s good’ type of movie. It had been a very long time since Mu had had a chance to laugh at a movie like that. It was amazing.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Hat Kid said about halfway through it.

“Yeah, uh… I’m a bit lost too,” Bow agreed. “Is this uh… really supposed to be a good movie?”

“No, of course not,” Mu said. “Why would you think that?”

“Well you seem to be enjoying it. Not that I’m not but… it’s really weird and I really don’t get it.”

“That’s the point. It’s horrible and makes no real sense but like in a way that’s so bad it’s funny.”

“’So bad it’s funny’?” Hat Kid repeated with a skeptical look. “I’ve… never heard a movie or anything described that way before.”

“Me neither,” Bow agreed. “But um… it does fit that description, huh?”

Wow these two really must’ve never been allowed to have fun on their home planet. Well they were here now so Mu was going to teach them all the ways one was supposed to have fun… and remind herself of those things in the process.

For this drabble event.

[shadowthrone-ammanas]

prompt: Hat Kid, Bow Kid, and Mu, postgame, get along surprisingly well. Unfortuantely NONE of them have a fully working sense of danger and self-preservation. Sometimes them hanging out is just normal hangouts. Someones they get into Shenanigans. Usually someone appoints themself Voice of Reason and keeps the chaos relatively safe but sometimes that system fails. Which is why random adults, up to and including the Snatcher, have found themselves abruptly in charge of three reckless kids.

Thank you for the request!

Climbing

When Hat Kid had suggested they climb the big tree in Subcon Forest, Mu hadn’t quite known how big said tree was. She hadn’t known trees could even get that big. Even when she craned her neck up to look at it, she couldn’t see the top due to how close they stood.

“Now that I look at it again… are we sure this is a good idea?” Bow said, voicing Mu’s own doubts but…

“It’ll be fine,” she said. While this wasn’t Mu’s first time in Subcon Forest, she didn’t get to come here often. She wanted to see more of it, the top of the tree was the best place to do that – and as long as Cooking Cat never found out about this specific adventure, she wouldn’t even need to sit through a safety lecture later like she had with a few other adventures of theirs. “We climb trees and stuff all the time and barely ever fall.”

“Yeah,” Hat Kid agreed. “Now let’s go. Race you guys to the top.” She took off, leaving Bow and Mu little choice but to follow.

Hat Kid started climbing first followed shortly by Bow, landing Mu in last place. For now, anyway. She was taller than them now, her arms and legs longer, she should be able to overtake them easily.

Climbing it was actually quite easy. Its bark was thick and lumpy, providing plenty of hand and footholds. Reaching the beginning of the tree’s many branches made their progress quicker. It was almost like it was made for climbing.

Mu remained behind though, not much but enough to be mildly frustrating. She decided to change that about halfway up. She started moving faster, going for riskier branches to pull herself up with. It paid off as she passed Bow. She was closing in Hat Kid now, just little more and…

The branch she’d grabbed to pull herself up snapped with a loud crack. Suddenly she was falling. Air whistled past her ears as, branches painfully whipping her as she fell through them. She closed her eyes with a whimper. She couldn’t die like this, she…

She jerked to a stop just as suddenly. Something had caught her cape. A branch probably. She needed to grab onto something before it broke under her weight!

She opened her eyes and froze, putting her hands over her mouth to stifle a yelp of surprise. It wasn’t a tree branch that had caught her but the infamous Snatcher and he did not look pleased.

“What made you idiots think this was a good idea?” he asked, turning his frown away from Mu, keeping hold of her by her cape.

“It’s fun,” Hat Kid replied. “But uh… Mu, are you okay?”

Mu managed to twist herself to look up at Hat Kid and Bow still halfway up the tree. She gave a thumbs up because she was okay, just shaken a bit.

Snatcher sighed. “Of course you think it’s fun, you’re insane. I suggest coming back down now though because I’m not going to catch the next one of you that falls.”

“Catch me too,” Bow called before jumping.

Despite what he’d just said, Snatcher jerked into motion to catch her with his other hand. “You idiot children!” Oh, he was mad now.

Bow giggled, almost just as insane as Hat Kid. “Thank you.”

Snatcher growled, sounding a lot like a rabid animal and sending a chill down Mu’s spine. But despite that he was almost kind of gentle as he lowered Mu the rest of the way to the forest floor. He put Bow done too before looking back up at Hat Kid. Free from his grasp Mu was half tempted to run but… she needed to know how this played out. According to Hat Kid, Snatcher wasn’t as evil as his reputation made him out to be. The fact that he’d saved Mu’s life and then caught Bow hinted that that might actually be the case. So it was probably safe to stay and watch whatever happened next.

“Kid,” he said. “I’m serious, I will drag your dumbass back down here if you don’t start climbing down this instant.”

Hat Kid’s face wasn’t visible from down here but it was easily to imagine. It was probably the same look of annoyance she had any time an adult came along and ruined one of their adventures, regardless of whether or not they were justified in interfering. “Ugh, fine Dad.”

“I’m not your dad so don’t call me…”

Hat Kid jumped. She was insane, both her and Bow Kid. Snatcher caught her of course mere seconds after her leap of faith towards him.

“Wee,” she said with a giggle, looking up at his shocked expression that quickly morphed into a scowl.

“Why would you do that?” he said.

“It’s the fastest way down,” Hat Kid replied with a giggle.

“I should’ve let you fall and break your useless neck.”

“You’d never do that. You care way too much about me to let me get hurt. That’s why you were watching us, right? To make sure we wouldn’t get hurt.”

“I was not watching you. I just happened to be passing by when your friend fell and decided to catch her because the last thing I need right now is to deal with you pests dying and becoming damn ghosts in my forest. Because then you would never leave.”

“You keep telling yourself that.” Hat Kid’s bravery was forever to be admired.

Bow had moved over to stand by Mu. “This is what we meant when we told you he’s a big ‘soon-deh-ray’,” she whispered. “He cares, he just doesn’t want to admit it for some reason.”

That certainly seemed to be the case as he lowered Hat Kid to ground to stand next to them. “You three,” he gestured to them, frowning, “no more climbing trees. If you must play in the forest, it’s going to be a safer activity than that. In fact, I know just the thing.”

The world around the four of them shifted to purple. When it faded, they were in a what looked like a village. Subcon Village if Mu had to guess, she’d never been to it before but Hat Kid and Bow had mentioned it a few times.

“You guys are going to play ball with the Subconites,” Snatcher said. “One of them has a soccer ball somewhere. Find it and entertain yourselves for while instead of being a nuisance.” With that he vanished.

“I don’t think he’s actually gone,” Hat Kid said as she turned back to face Mu and Bow. “He’s still watching us to make sure we don’t run off and get in ‘trouble’ again.”

Mu glanced all around but saw no trace of him. Which made sense, this was his domain, he should be able to hide in it near flawlessly. “Why is he like that though? If he cares why wouldn’t he say so? What if somebody he cares about gets the wrong idea and gets upset when he pretends he hates them or whatever?”

“Well uh… I think that’s what he wants.” Hat Kid shrugged. “He wants to push people away because of bad stuff that happened to him when he was alive.”

Mu had trouble picturing Snatcher as a living being, though he had to have been at some point, right? “What kind of stuff?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not? I want to know.” How could Hat Kid just dangle that bit of juicy gossip in front of Mu and not deliver on it?

“It’s not her place to tell,” Bow said. “She didn’t even tell me. Just like I can’t tell you guys stuff I know about Moonjumper. And if you knew any of Cooking Cat’s dirty secrets, you wouldn’t feel right telling us, right?”

“Uh… yeah, I guess so.”

“Good!” Hat Kid said. “Now let’s go find that soccer ball and play whatever soccer is. I’m sure the Subconites will teach us, they’re pretty good about that kind of thing.”

Well, it wouldn’t be as fun as climbing a big tree but honestly, Mu maybe wasn’t in the mood to do that anymore anyway. It wasn’t everyday one got a chance to play around in Snatcher’s forest and have it be okay. And it was still something new.

For this drabble event.

[shadowthrone-ammanas]

So the first thing with the tiny Hat Kid/Borrowers AU that I came up with was that originally it was based off of the visual of a mod level I was playing where there was a lantern the size of Hat Kid. I didn’t start it thinking about the Borrowers as “humans but tiny” I was thinking of them as like Hat Kid’s species. 

So when I later decided Mu was also tiny that resulted in having Mu be also distinctly not just a tiny human and it had ripple effects on the borrower species design

So, background details: Most of the characters are still the same. However, the locations are different. Mafia Town isn’t on a little island, it’s on a larger one with both underground-undersea Metro tunnels and shipping routes. There is a large forest- Subcon- and some mountains, the Alpine Skyline, which then have a desert in their rainshadow. 

So that’s all the chapters except Arctic Cruise on one reasonably sized landmass, instead of scattered all over the planet, much more accessable to tiny Hat Kid

I’m gonna put a ‘read more’ right here for the sake of people’s dashboards. I hope that’s okay.

Borrower biology notes: inspired a little bit by ruffs and also my attempts to work out having Hat Kid, Bow Kid, and Mu as members of the same species

3 or 4 sexes in a similar way to ruffs or white-throated sparrows; about all I have pinned down is that Mu’s facial-hair-no-ponytail-and-long-bangs/tendrils/flaps combo is associated with one of them, bow kid’s no-ponytail, no-hair-flaps, no-facial-hair combo is another, and hat kid’s ponytail-and-flaps-but-no-facial-hair is a third (yes this means two of them are trans)

The Borrowers, as they sometimes call themselves, are the result of an incredibly powerful spell a few centuries back. They used to be about the size of humans, before the spell; and pretty much all of them lived on two islands.

The Mafia wanted to move to those islands, so they gathered up all the Time Pieces they could get into one spot on the island and had a sacrificial Mafia member do A Thing involving the time pieces and a great deal of other magical items to remove the islanders; faking a wild magic surge. The result was that as far as the rest of the world was concerned the entire species simply vanished, turned into these tiny little echoes,and also this was much less scary than it should have been. There is still a spot on the island Hat Kid is from that will likely have nothing grow there for thousands of years.

The Time Pieces exploded into much smaller fragments, time shards, which scattered all over the world, and the shrunken islanders started to try to adjust to their new lives. 

Which was made a lot harder by the Mafia moving in; they spread false information claiming that the tiny post-transformation islanders weren’t sapient anymore and were pests, like large mice, to be dealt with with poison and rat traps. 

Some Borrowers start using time shards to power things; others do the dangerous thing of tapping electricity from wires; others use tiny candles and other pre-electric style technology or magic.

Their society adjusts to a world where “eaten by a seagull” is a plausible cause of death, everyone can double-jump, most people can carry more than their own weight, and an umbrella is easily enough to completely stop all fall damage. Square-cube law! Luckily the magic helps keep them warm, but Borrowers still have a faster metabolism than they did pre-spell and need to eat more often. 

Amongst other details, it’s common for a Borrower to end up on their own due to being separated from their clan or having the rest of their clan die. Solitary borrowers don’t tend to last long, so they generally try to get adopted by the first clan they come across, basically just showing up and starting to pitch in; there’s always something to be done.

Also Borrowers are a little more scent-focused than humans, most noteably being more able to notice the scent of borrowers than a human is able to notice the scent of other humans; this is really helpful for lost borrowers finding other clans.

Hat Kid is the kid of someone relatively important in a borrower community on the other island. They treated her poorly/were neglectful, so she ended up falling in with, basically, the local borrower criminals. (Not many places have enough clans living closely enough together to really have borrowers that are criminals by borrower standards; stealing from the taller folk is not considered a crime but rather just survivial, and attacking the taller folk is basically considered lunacy.)

Eventually Hat Kid, at age 11 (okay actually older, like 16 or so, but she maps to a human 11 year old), decided to fake her death and entirely leave her old clan. Due to various shenanigans including her not being out to her old clan, the fake murder, a real murder done by Hat Kid, and paranoia she managed to be accused of murdering herself and got exiled which is a Big Deal. She stole the one local aircraft (that she had helped build) and fled, exploring far beyond her family’s reach (especially now they didn’t have a timeshard-powered aircraft).

In between her ‘ship’, her skills with an umbrella and movement, audacity, and sheer dumb luck Hat Kid managed to live alone for quite some time, eventually landing in Mafia Town due to an incident involving a Mafia with a bugnet, losing the time shards that powered her ship in the process. She meets up with Mu and is like. FRIEND! Sure, I’ll join up with you!

…aaaaand then Mu wants to use the time shards that powered Hat Kid’s airship thingy to hurt the Mafia more. And Hat Kid is like, no, no I need those. Result: Mu leaves in a huff, Hat Kid is alone again. 

Hat Kid’s ship, by this point, has been repaired enough and has enough time shards to fly a little, so she goes and recklessly lands on the local above-ground train and hitches a ride, ending up at Dead Bird Studio. Grooves finds her and is like, this borrower-mouse is wearing decent clothing and a hat. Whose escaped pet is this.

Hat Kid is semiverbal but definitely literate and manages to get her hands on a writing implement and explains that she is nobody’s pet. The Conductor and Grooves decide to hire her for movies.

Directors: a sapient borrower-mouse who wants to be an actress and is actually good at it just when we need a new actor and fresh movie ideas! Perfect!

Hat Kid: This weird clan has lots of infighting and mostly trades in movies? I get to be adopted and to use my skill in acting for things that aren’t lying to people? Perfect!

So that’s a good month or so for Hat Kid, with the culture clash never being clarified, whoops. Both the Directors think Hat Kid is going home to her family when really she’s doing stuff like looking for that time shard she thinks might be present or fixing up her ship more or getting food that isn’t provided by the Directors. (At least they recognize that providing lots of snacks to the tiny child is a good idea.)

Then the movies (both of them) are finished, and the directors are like. Thanks for working with us. There’s no more movies for you, kid, stop showing up to filming there’s no more filming involving you. (Grooves never really started seeing Hat Kid as fully a person and is pretty cruel about kicking her out from his side of the studio, too.)

In the Director’s culture: “Seriously kid contract is done, the movies you starred in have no more filming, wouldn’t mind working with you again later but uh we are not currently working on a movie right now why are you here?”

In Hat Kid’s culture: “We’re exiling you. Again.“ 

So she goes to Subcon Forest. Yes, this is stupid and risky. Hat Kid does not care.

Snatcher sees this absolutely tiny person and is like. You’re too small to be a threat. Also too small to have a soul worth the effort of eating it. 

So he hires her to do stuff like detail work on repainting the Subconites’ houses and other stuff a tiny person can do. 

He proceeds to assume she’s being cuttingly sarcastic when she calls him "dad” or “dadcher”. Instead of 100% serious. (Her perception of this as an adoption is helped by Snatcher making an effort to dig out old books and old memories on what of the local flora and fauna is edible and provide Hat Kid with fresh local food, which is a Special Effort as, well, subconites and dwellers feed off of ambient magic and abstract stuff while Snatcher eats souls.)

After maybe about two weeks he’s out of work for Hat Kid and tells her so, like, “No more work for you, kiddo. You’re free to leave.” Then is mystified when Hat Kid leaves in tears. Like what did he do wrong??

I have no clue what Hat Kid would be up to in the Alpine Skyline. Something. Probably trying to impress random nomads and goats and not understanding why they’re impressed but still leave her. 

Eventually she finds out that Mu has gotten her hands on time shards and is managing to use them to set places on fire. Hat Kid goes to stop her because no!! You do not just indiscriminately set Mafia Town on fire! Even aside from all the tall folk living there you don’t know how many borrowers are living in the walls! 

So she stops Mu, then realizes that pretty much everyone watching her has either ‘exiled’ her or has been known to hunt borrowers before (eg the Mafia) so she flees down a subway tunnel and lives in the Metro for a few days before meeting the Empress. By this point Mu’s very public yelling about how the Mafia were killing her people has gotten on the news, so she’s aware that at least some borrowers are sapient and people, and is like. You work for me now.

Hat Kid is like, my greatest fifth chance!

Eventually, though, Hat Kid manages to annoy the Empress. By this point she’s gotten used to the idea that something is wrong with her, people really don’t care about her, and at any point she could be abruptly betrayed and exiled, so she panics, assumes she’s going to be kicked out very soon, and ends up deciding to preemptively betray Empress by stealing her time shard. Empress is throughly baffled and also very upset and puts out a bounty of a few thousand or so on Hat Kid’s head; time shards are valuable damn it but also…only one?? she’d been known to bring back five or six at once? 

(Time shards aren’t very tangible to most people by default. Borrowers can interact with them always and make them solid to everyone. Hat Kid could’ve easily reversed that and forced Empress to use magically charged tongs to pick up her time shards and hire another borrower to fix them but she didn’t. The longer Empress thinks on this, the more confused she gets.)

At some point during Hat Kid’s time in the nyakuza Mu ends up adopted by Cooking Cat. She shows up on TV sometimes, joining in an episode with stuff like running commentary while perched on CC’s shoulder or butting in to help frost cakes or whatever. 

Hat Kid’s confused upset post-nyakuza wandering ends up leading her to where the Conductor is just coming back from a cruise. Conductor is like LASSIE I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN FOREVER! Hat Kid is like ??? and then decides that maybe…maybe kicking her out was entirely Groove’s idea and Conductor still likes her? Maybe?

And then in the ensuring confused discussion Conductor begins to realize the culture clash. Conductor ends up adopting Hat Kid, and later takes in Bow Kid as well because she was separated from her family and saw Hat Kid riding on Conductor’s shoulders and just sort of. Jumped on his other shoulder, startling him, and was like “HI”.

At some point Hat Kid and Bow Kid end up guest starring alongside Mu (they made up) on Cooking Cat’s show. Possibly several times. Hat and Bow are adorable and while they don’t really say much unscripted and it’s usually sentence fragments they’re still popular for a mixture of Adorable and their sense of humour eg Bow Kid insisting that duck is actually “quackers” in a dish involving duck and cheese to set CC up for a terrible “cheese and quackers” pun. 

Mu, Hat Kid, Bow Kid, and the TV Trio end up working together a lot to try to change things for the better for the Borrowers. Meanwhile Snatcher is off doing his own thing, having heard of the culture clash (Mu explained it on TV at some point) he works out a schedule for when Hat and Bow are staying with the Conductor and when one or the other or both are staying with him. He ends up with a few borrower clans living in his forest (they followed Hat Kid) and is just like, sure this works. 

I greatly admire people who can just come up with AU ideas and build on them and then come up with a whole story for the AU. I love that it has a happy ending too. :)