#ddp's fantroll corner

[absintheum]

day 1 - brioni

ohSundown left the shore warm. You were always awake to watch the last rays of natural light, as the day approached it’s end and the night blended into it. You remember reading lines of a poem describing the moments of shift between the light and dark, but you can’t recall the exact words. Something about the rose-tinted fingers of the aurora and the tentacles of darkness holding gently onto the metaphorical hand. You never understood what the point of that poem was.

The moments in which you were alone on the shore were getting fewer and farther, between your self-imposed seclusion in your secondary hive and the quicksand pits that were beginning to engulf all of the shoreline of the island you called your first home. That and your sleeping habits’ change due to natural aging. Quicksand, you had learned, was one of life’s few certainties among taxes, death and the feeling of existential dread felt as you looked into the horizon at dusk, from a wave riding board placed strategically, so it would float on the may- or not yet- be quicksand. There was something cathartic about it. You couldn’t place it, nor name it, but there was a feeling worming its way inside of your pusher. It was a mixed feeling, which left notes of bitterness in your mouth and sweetness in your throat. You could never tell if it was positive or not.

After the sun had sunk below the line of ocean you called horizon, you got up, not bothering to brush off your wetsuited dress the sand that would be soon washed away by the saltwater. You had been clever in your youth: no matter the quicksand season and moment of cycle, you had installed a few paths of low-density wave riding boards. You had 8 sweeps of experience in not being dead via the sand; you were the unsinkable. The occasional piece of no troll’s treasure that would wash ashore couldn’t say the same.

Some, you had rescued out of curiosity and sparks of environmental awareness, while some were already so buried in that you couldn’t be bothered to dig them up. The quicksand giveth, the quicksand gaveth. That was the law of quicksand.

The sea floor was no exception: the conditions in the place you decided to construct your primary hive was just so perfect that in the correct season, the underwater floor itself could be dangerous (if the many sea lusii, including your own, weren’t already making the area a bit too cozy). Said season wasn’t due to kick in for a quarter at least, to your estimate. You’d take the smidgeon of added safety to dive in, swimming to the depths that allowed your favourite anemones to grow. The dive was always your favourite part of the day, it freshened up your mind and reminded you that you were alive, in one way. It was peaceful, to soak underwater and to allow your gills to breathe. To allow your fins to expand and contract to aid in your movements.

Your webbed hands had grown calloused from picking them- it stang, but you’d endure it. Compared to your medousoid lusus’, it was the gentle touch of a quadrantmate. The anemones you picked were more than what you’d have gotten last time, they filled the space in your arms as the gentle sting spread from your fingers and palms to the skin of your forearms. You sucked it up, the air of the night would be cooling enough. In two hours’ time, your skin would be good as new. In a way, it was similar to the practice of urchincupunture: eventually, you’d develop a resistance to the toxin and your skin would stay tense and smooth. You couldn’t eat the sea urchins needles, however.

Once the amount satisfied you and the sting became uncomfortable, you sprang upwards, to the surface. The shore had cooled down significantly, and so had the air. Your sore and slightly flushed skin felt relief, where it could. You ran on the boards and back inside, there was still work to be done before you could take a breather: anemones don’t milk themselves yet. You wish that was a saying, but you seemed to be the only user, despite the attempts to lure your friends into using it.

As you deposited the bounty of the dusk onto the table in the sliving room, you shook your arms, as if movement would soothe the dull ache (it didn’t, but it felt as if it was right to do so). You recounted the amount on your fingers and in your head and attempted to open your shelltop and almost jolted in a sudden wave of pain. How you managed to forget each time, it was above you.

You tried opening your shelltop again, using your teeth as leverage and your chin to guide the cruisor across the screen and open a flashing notification on a text box, and your voice to text before you even tried to think about typing.

--- hibisquisiteNatterer [HN] is bubbling to cnidarialClone [CC] ---

HN: v^v^ heeeeeyyyyyy bubble boo ^v^v HN: v^v^ are you awake yet? you should be, but in case you’re not ^v^v HN: v^v^ i miss you so much! the pile isn’t the same without you!! but!!! there is a new friend waiting for you!!!!! CC: ŒŒ== i’m awakŒ plŒnty and swanky CC: ŒŒ== i miss you tŒrribly too! just rŒsist thŒ wŒŒk, i’ll bŒ back soonŒr than a fresh bottlŒ of anŒmonŒ milk HN: v^v^ one entire week!! one week is too long!!! its an entire perigree’s time!!!!!! HN: v^v^ also i swear.. you... and your obscure figures of speech…… HN: v^v^ pale for you…. nonetheless…. but you do rip a shred of my soul when you mention it… CC: ŒŒ== i’ll sŒŒ to it pŒrsonally to throw it into a dronŒdustry standardizŒd papŒrwork shrŒddŒr whŒn i get thŒrŒ

You are a girl of simple pleasures. You love to torment your pale girlfriend with insufferable phrases nobody will use and she loves to call you “bubble boo”. You cannot deprive each other of this and you’re living for it.

HN: v^v^ sigh!!!!!!!!!!! ^v^v HN: v^v^ one week is an acceptable wait….. afterall…… HN: v^v^ ….. bubble boo…… HN: v^v^ >;D

What, are you supposed not to swoon?

CC: ŒŒ== palŒ for you too <> CC: ŒŒ== but i supposŒ that you’ll think again, for thŒrŒ is a dad hold on i’m ta- shit no dŒlŒtŒ dŒvlŒtŒ CC: ŒŒ== fuck nO WAIT CC: ŒŒ== SHIT HN: v^v^ are you on s2ht???????????? ^v^v CC: ONŒ MOMŒNT PLEASŒ

You disable the speech to text, again, with your chin. Your dad is awake and wants to be fed and you have to cut the chit-chat short. It was a good coincidence, however: your secret surprise of a gift can keep it’s title for another day. As the window is closed, you sigh. Dad knows it’s the day you leave again, this time for almost a perigree. He’d come with you, when you were younger, but you were well past the age of needing a chaperone to your love visits. Can’t blame a girl for wanting to enjoy the freedom of what is left of their fun years before the lacrosse bat of being hurled into space swung you into space.

At least feeding time was fun.

Your dad hunted for itself when it wanted to, but you also enjoyed looking from the glass walls of the uppest lower floor as the feeding brine was poured into his designated block  from a specifically designed pipe, and the thousands of tiny little crustacean were consumed. It made his mostly translucent body gain a faintly coloured tint between the violet of your blood and the purple of the caste below it. In a spark of childish genius, juvenile you had decided that the quickest way to make way to the lower floors of your primary home into the airlock of your submarine secondary one was going to be a slide, spiraling downwards. It was a bad decision and sometimes you’d bring a book to read until motion sickness kicked in. The stairs were added in a second moment, as you matured a sense for interior design and a taste for not being hurled face-first into the steel walls of a submarine. That last part was solved with padding the area of presumed landing.

Landing face-first into plush and pillow is way more pleasant.

Remembering you left the key item for the event upstairs isn’t. Begrudgingly climbing up enough sets of stairs to give you quads for days wasn’t either.

A second slide gave you time to contemplate that maybe you should have rethought the design of this slide entirely and not have taken it a second time. A second thump that accompanied your arrival at the plush landing station confirmed your thoughts.  A look at the clutched anemones confirms they are still intact, and relief  accompanies that. Their sting has subsided, finally they can be refined as your recipe intends. Your submarine is fully equipped and furnished, ready to leave at the snap of your fingers. You’re ready to depart and from the windows of the piloting chamber, the dark depths look into you. You look up and back into the dark night waters. You can barely make out the speck that is supposed to be the green moon. You flip the autopilot switch on and let the whirring of machinery soothe the loneliness.

[absintheum]

double combo meal - kookii + rhyzaa

The smell of vanilla has been lingering in the kitchen of you hive for as long as you can remember. You had built a routine centered around keeping it that way, replenishing the grubwax in the melting pot three times every night, supplying the oil as necessary to keep it strong enough to mask the odour of the city without making you sick. It reminded you of rot, of stale saltwater, of all the things that ended with the spillage of blood. In one word, it reeked of what you should have been biologically wired to not pay any attention to, or seek out, with the exception that whatever genes had combined in your DNA, may have decided to do so with the sole scope to wire you like this on purpose, out of petty spite.

You had almost forgotten how it felt, but the back of your mind had turned it into the troll babadook, knocking from the basement door of your thinkpan, and just like troll Babadook, you had to learn to live with it, with specially made paint and various perfumes that wouldn’t let go of the fabrics of your wardrobe and the occasional elixirberry jelly lip moisturizer.

The city wasn’t the worst thing to plague your nose, however. As you grew older and closer to your ninth sweep of age, you had almost mastered the art of not letting yourself get sick from it anymore. You knew where to avoid setting foot in and where to pass, until you could map safe path after safe path.

The hardest part of the week was church day. The day in which you had to willingly walk to a place that you’d begged your lusus to let you skip attendance in your wrigglerhood. It never worked, but you knew better than to let other churchgoers see your displeased expression.

It wasn’t the incense nor the wicked elixir that did it for you. It was what they covered that felt like being punched in the gut, like covering spoiled meat in fake sugar and setting it on fire, before covering it with more fake sugar. It was the acrid smell of idolatry. The metallic one of the splatters that wouldn’t stop reeking, no matter how dry or old they were. The sour one of the bloodthirst that plagued those who had stopped sleeping in their cocoons’ slime, whose minds were beginning to wear under the nightmares. The sickly sweetness of the pixie stix that mixed in, to literally sugarcoat the reality of each and every terrible act that took place there.

Then there was a pungently acidic one, of disbelief and skepticism. It came from you. The worst one that you’d learnt to memorise. You were aware. You could see beyond what was fed to you in clowntechism, you could feel there was more to the reason your caste was always so heavily influenced by the cult built around the Mirthful Messiahs. You knew,stubborn in your conviction, but couldn’t say a word.

Church had become your still tragedy in three acts, the first one opened with the entrance, It was the click of your heels as you walked to the altar that ticked like seconds on a clock, timing the moment in which you knew you had to breathe with your mouth that signaled the beginning of the second. The handfuls of fairy dust thrown signaled the intermissions, in which you could breathe normally. The communion was the climax of the third act, before the closing of the third.

A violent, bloody climax, in which the frenzy of “whoop whoop” and discordant honks would rise as the offering met its fate. Sometimes, you had made the mistake of standing too close and the blood had sprayed on you, drenching you in the very thing you despise. It was akin to walking out of the hive with a new outfit, only to have it ruined by a shower of mud from the side of the road from  a scuttlebuggy driven by someone who handled the thing like they had stolen it.

It was infuriating, but best to swallow the croackbeast, lest you end up there in the next ceremony. You have too much to do to die so soon. There was comfort in knowing the script, however. You could count the second backwards, making the right movements, honks and expressions when needed before leaving for another week. Improv, however, you handled badly.

It was rare, but the occasional overzealousness of the moment would lead the slime-starved churchgoers into a frenzy that would end with a few smashed skulls and disembodied limbs. Such a scenario could be avoided if you were either a speedy runner, or strong enough to fight back before running to safety and letting the rest handle it, or strong enough to actually take down the opponent.

While usually you’d run, today you had been too slow.

You weren’t sure if you had been hit before or after you’d tripped on a torn limb and fell on the body that was missing it. It was still oozing blood in a shade that was a little too close to your own, it had stuck to the white of your hair and you were already dreading the following seconds. In the second it took you to regain consciousness of your surroundings, you were already being shadowed by a figure whom seemed to have been the firestarter of the chaos. In that moment, as your already cold blood froze in your veins, an old survival instinct awoke and sprung into action. May the Messiahs you doubted in so much forgive you, but you can’t blame a clown for wanting to live.

The minds of fellow clowns were already resistant to their fellows’ psychic control, but clowns who wouldn’t rest in sopor had thinning mind walls. Using one’s chucklevoodoos would be easy on them, but there was a small chance that the intruder would carry on a trace of their crazed fellow’s zealousness into their own mind. It was rare, but something to take into account, unless you were moments away from confirming or debunking completely your theories on the clown faith.

Your eyes flash and you break into the wet paper of your assalitor’s skull with little effort. The smell you dread so much grows stronger, the psychic link makes pinching your nose useless. At the limit of your patience and frustration, you hit a mental button to release psychic energy and spare yourself another hit, paying it back to your attacker. You hear their cheekbone cracking under their fist, over and over, in a gruesomely comical scene of “stop hitting yourself”. It feels like it lasts hours until you feel the link getting weaker and weaker, until it breaks. Whether the guy has just lost consciousness or embarked on a one way ticket to the Carnival, you don’t know for sure, nor want to know. Right now, all you know is nausea.

You struggle back to your feet, the blood that stained your face, hair and clothes makes it hard for you to breathe without inhaling what plagues you. A look confirms the emptiness of the church, save for a few others who, like you, hadn’t been lucky or fast enough.

The sugary and metallic scents made your stomach turn in queasiness. You dreaded coming home and staining the floor, but you were in absolute need for a shower, clean clothes and a fresh layer of paint.

The way home felt almost eternal.

You sat in the ablution trap, setting the water on as hot as it would get and scrubbing away at every patch of encrusted blood from yourself, hoping that if you could completely erase them from your skin, it would be as if it had never happened.  You came to find that you’d be disappointed from looking at what seemed like the early stage of bruises where you had fallen and were hit. The light purple under your skin ached to the touch. It took you three cycles of washing to deem yourself clean enough and free of the scent of frenzy, and by the end of it, the tip of your digits were starting to wrinkle from the moisture.

Ignoring your lusus’ knocks at the door of your respiteblock, you set alight the melting pot and watched the fruit-scented grubwax melt dissolve. You decided to ignore everything and slip in the comfort of plush and soft blankets of your makeshift cocoon, leaving outside only your head and your hands to hold your palmhusk, deciding to reply to the unanswered and unread text messages in a second moment and opting instead to watch mindlessly whatever the algorithm of grubtube had deemed worthy of your entertainment.

You couldn’t be bothered to check how long you have stayed there. You can hardly be bothered to answer a high-priority text from your matesprit. You’d informed here that today was a church day and you’d never want her worried. It wasn’t as if you’d risked getting a free skull crashing just this morning. Still, you knew that not answering was going to just result in more pressing texts, so you decided to take the male moobeast by the horns.

saccharinePierrot [SP] is juggling hearts to forensicCasefiler [FC]

SP: -x-0hello -x-0there my -x-0reddest red heart SP: -x-0what is the -x-0subject -x-0of today’s lovingly -x-0crafted -x-0conversation of which i -x-0am already -x-0aware of FC: are y0-0u alright? FC: y0-0u haven’t said a w0-0rd since service was supp0-0sed t0-0 start, and i deduce it is 0-0ver and has been f0-0r s0-0me time n0-0w FC: i d0-0 n0-0t kn0-0w h0-0w t0-0 be m0-0re e><plicit than this FC: i was w0-0rried ab0-0ut y0-0 SP: -x-0why -x-0yes, -x-0i am fully -x-0operational and -x-0functional and -x-0in great -x-0spirit, very -x-0very glad -x-0to be -x-0so FC: d0-0 y0-0u need t0-0 talk? SP: -x-0yes

The thought of lying through your teeth did cross your mind, but it was an unwise choice. Your matesprit, Rhyzaa, had been trained in the legislacerative arts of forensic examination and minored in detecting lies of people who were way better at lying than you. You were like a transparent piece of polymeric product in her specs. You supposed it wouldn’t hurt, it would almost be like a real feels jam, in person and all.

FC: i’ll get in a pile, 0-0ne sec

Damn, she was good. You snapped a quick picture while doing a sideways peace sign. You wouldn’t miss a chance to do some comedy and captioned it with a “ -x-0you -x-0know a clown -x-0too -x-0well “

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You stare at the screen, unsure of what to respond to the newly received snapshot. If they were already cocooning, it sure wasn’t because they were taking their sleep schedule into account. You kept a plush cocoon just for these occasions, all you had to do was just to kick back, take off your specs and postpone a nail appointment. Maybe it would be a good idea to book a double one, as a self-care date. In the giant wall of post-its that lived in your mind, the nail appointment reminder appeared.

FC: all piled up, whenever y0-0u are ready

Your matesprit doesn’t waste a second and starts typing away, for quite a few minutes. In fact, you’ve considered getting up to grab some water, but decided against it. You don’t have the heart to be late to a bad day talk. You did spend the better of a few minutes reading through the messy texts, trying to piece together the happenings of your partner’s morning. An especially rough day, indeed.

FC: w0-0w, y0-0u managed t0-0 take d0-0wn that dude all by y0-0urself?? FC: that’s quite a feat! SP:-x-0your -x-0awe is -x-0understandable, -x-0my -x-0dearest. -x-0but -x-0yours truly -x-0feels that they -x-0have -x-0reached the -x-0bottom of the -x-0waterwell SP: -x-0what a turn of -x-0events, a -x-0clown who -x-0despised -x-0their -x-0predispositional mirthful -x-0destiny is the -x-0same clown -x-0to grow -x-0weary at the -x-0thought of -x-0clowning SP: -x-0hark, -x-0the writers -x-0are -x-0already banging -x-0at the -x-0door! -x-0offering -x-0life and -x-0limb for -x-0the -x-0rights to the -x-0story FC: you are the last h0-0rned walking creature t0-0 turn 0-0ut t0-0 be a sell0-0ut FC: but FC: y0-0u are als0-0 the 0-0nly h0-0rned walking creature t0-0 be able t0-0 rec0-0gnise the reality of y0-0ur acti0-0ns and see them as y0-0urs truly, rather than s0-0me0-0ne’s divine wish 0-0r will FC: n0-0thing can compare t0-0 that FC: and y0-0u know that you w0-0uld never let yourself be turned int0-0 wh0-0 let their screws get l0-00-0se FC: have y0-0urself a slime mask, y0-0u deserve it

You really hope you are saying the right words. You have read several papers about similar situations: it used to be, apparently, a common practice for some sub-sectors of the clown church, to advise practitioners to deprive themselves of the sopor slime’s soothing effects. The property damage fees are something that a past heiress decided was something she didn’t want to have anything to hear about and outright attempted to ban the practice.

You were actually writing your thesis on a similar topic, but as your thesis’ title would take longer to type than it has to have a proper conversation with someone, you would rather not mention it by specific name.

A purple text bubble flashes briefly before displaying a kissy clown emoji, followed by a simple text.

SP: -x-0you always know -x-0what say to -x-0validate me, and -x-0that is -x-0deeply -x-0appreciated SP: -x-0but, -x-0moving onto more -x-0pleasant -x-0views SP: -x-0how is the -x-0most -x-0successful -x-0soon-to-be -x-0exam committee -x-0member on -x-0this lovely day?

You pause for a moment. Do you want to subject your red quadrant to an in-detail explanation of your classes and homework, or should you make an introductory powerknifepoint? You decide to spare the juridic details, but nonetheless, leave them with a reasonable explanation of your scholarly activities. It’s a great thing that they love your ramblings, you could go on as long as you have breath, but your schedule doesn’t allow for that.

SP: -x-0wonderful, while i may not -x-0be -x-0well -x-0versed in your -x-0field SP: -x-0i do -x-0love to -x-0see it-x-0grow and -x-0flourish SP: -x-0you’ll -x-0do -x-0great, -x-0i’m -x-0sure

You and Kookii were lucky to have each other, especially coming from relationships that enjoyed crumbling like a stale.. heh.. cookie.. in a glass of moobeast juice. They had that pitch affair with that jade they wouldn’t talk about, and you didn’t even have the chance to say goodbye. Your moirail disappeared into thin air. You knew she didn’t die, asyou received the occasional letter, hidden below the hive’s entrance mat and knew that calligraphy far too well and cast doubts aside. You even went so far to violate protocol and ask one of your colleagues to supervise and determine whether this was a forcefully pretty handwriting or less. You were relieved to know that it didn’t show signs of the writer being stressed, but it kept gnawing at you from the inside.

No matter how hard and where any lead brought you, eventually you were back at square one. Nobody around you could tell you anything useful or relevant and your options had ran dry. Then came Kookii. They seemed to be able to take away that gnawing feeling, that knot in your stomach that wouldn’t otherwise untie itself. You missed her so much, but eventually, you figured that you couldn’t let it consume your entire being. So you stopped looking. You could only hope she was ok. There was so much you wanted to tell her, but all you could do was wait and see if fate, the universe or whoever was pulling at the strings, decided to take pity on you and allow you to see her again, one last time, before departing to outer space. As it ws a matter of fact, you were glad you had this clown in your life. They were an oddity that you’d have never guessed could be real, but you were also delighted to find that their oddity was almost exceptional. You two just started clicking and chirping and never stopped for the better half of the sweep, and didn’t have any plans to stop. Your plans were mostly composed of your busy schedule that always had room for your perigreal nails appointment and weekly date night. You had always done your field work right, that allowed you to pick a career path that would lead you to a high rank among the other legislacerators, if you played your cards right.

This was a game of troll poker played with different uno cards editions for everyone, but you knew the rules very well. And nobody played troll uno-poker like you could while still being troll osha compliant, dashing and with perfect nails.

You wanted to do great things, even if your self-awareness manifested itself in the knowledge that the path ahead wasn’t going to be either a cakewalk, nor a choice that depended on you entirely, despite what the propaganda taught you. You wouldn’t buy it, but you, too, knew better than to run your mouth without thinking. The legal business is cutthroat and it wasn’t uncommon to hear of the passing of others who shared your ideas, but not your common sense. That meant that the common goal among a good part of the less imperialistic of your colleagues was going to be harder to achieve. It was dreadful, to think that you’d be left completely alone by the time of your ordeals.

It was dreadful, but it was still not time to fixate on those. You’d have time to dread later, all you wanted to do now was to make a good memory of your time with your favourite clown.

FC: y0-0u’re the best <3 FC: are y0-0u feeling better?

You replied simply and smiled at Kookii’s positive answer. It made you feel fuzzy inside, in an almost childish fashion. You absolutely loved it and wouldn’t give up these moments for all the success on the planet and off planet. Your flush partner’s texts kept coming, this time lightening the mood with a string of gifs picturing juvenile purrbeasts and hopbeasts being the cutest little things to ever exist. Just your favourite way to destress and feel good about the current state of things, accompanied by their cheerful sprechgesang. It was a little slice of paradise that made the rest worth.

You were thinking about putting the cherry on top and getting yourself a slime mask as well, when you heard your doorbug chirp. You put your sweetheart on hold for the moment it took you to get out of the pile and dash to the door, opening it with hope in your eyes. You died a little bit when you couldn’t catch a glimpse of anyone nearby, but picked up the letter deposited on your greeting mat nonetheless.

There was something in your heart that screamed at you to open it.