#this is absolutely has no sense nor appeal and was written exclusive for the enjoyment of myself and eska specifically

[randomwriteronline]

The trees were very small. Which was weird, because they were pine trees, and last time Eska checked he could not tower on pine trees by just standing. The treetops were a few inches beneath his chin, and  he had no clue where he was.

A small voice reached his ears: “Hey, you up there!”

His back scrounched as he bent between the pine needles to greet whoever had called him.

A little man dressed in green, with a large wide hat, a big backpack, a strangely shaped nose and a relaxed look in his eyes looked up at him: “Say, is it dawn yet?” he asked nicely.

Holy shit, Eska thought. That’s Snufkin from the Moomins.

“Hm.” he nodded.

“I should probably hurry up then,” Snufkin from the Moomins said, “My good friend Moomin is waiting for me. He misses me a lot during the winter, you know.”

“I know.” Eska replied.

“Oh? Have you already been to Moominvalley then?”

“No. Tiny brother told me.”

“How nice of him. My sister Little My is probably already at Moominhouse by now - she quite likes to stay over.”

“I know.”

“Well then! I better be off, Moominvalley is a long way from here. It was nice meeting a giant for the first time. Have a good day!”

As he started leaving Eska hummed a whine to keep the little creature around for a moment more, and Snufkin turned towards him again.

The factotum fiddled with his overalls a moment: "Can I come too?" he finally asked, gravely voice rumbling through the trees.

"I can't see why not." Snufkin replied. "But you'll have to walk slowly, as my legs are much shorter than yours."

"Have an idea," Eska offered.

He grabbed the little man carefully, with both hands, and raised him into the air so that he could sit on the skeletal shoulder. The Snufkin wiggled his arms about for a moment before regaining his balance, and held tight onto the worn fabric and brown hair so that he would not fall.

"This is a good idea indeed," the little one concluded as he watched the horizon from above the treetops. "With your long steps we'll arrive in no time. There, I can almost see the river to Moominhouse already!"

Following the direction the little finger was pointing towards and taking care not to accidentally destroy any pine tree on his way, Eska began walking.

It wasn’t long before the blue building appeared on the newly green backdrop of seemingly endless pastures, and from the distance it looked just like a well-crafted wooden toy he himself might have sculpted. It  brought him a strange sense of familiarity, as if he had been coming over for years, always at this time. It was nothing like recognizing something from the cartoon or a commercial: it was like walking back home, or slinking through the vents, or curling on the couch; it was like thinking ‘this is the place: this is where I am and where I like to be, and I am right where I should be when I come back here’.

The Moomins did have that effect on people.

On Tove Jansson’s characters more often.

Was he a Tove Jansson’s character? Probably not (because he didn’t have paws or tails or lovely weird Finnish names), but he wouldn’t have minded if he was. He liked them a lot. It would have been fun to live in Moominvalley. He just had to hope Mymble Jr didn’t fall in love with him, or that would have been a sad deal for her, poor thing. Otherwise it would have been fun.

“Do you mind music?” Snufkin asked, fetching his harmonica.

The answer was a grunt that sounded like ‘no’.

“Good! I would have played regardless, since the weather is good for a song this morning. Maybe Moomin will hear it as well and come to meet us.”

Moomintroll running out to see a just returned Snufkin would have had to brace himself, Eska thought while the Mumrik played a ditty and the distance between them and their destination shortened and shortened, because he highly doubted the little white thing would have expected to see a lanky skeleton bear about the size of his house. Would he have freaked out? Usually people freaked out even when he wasn’t the size of a two story house. Hopefully he wouldn’t. He would have liked to touch a Moomin. They seemed really soft. Maybe if Moomin didn’t freak out he would have held him in his hand.

The harmonica sang near his ear, and he hummed softly in tune, shaking the earth beneath him.

By the time they stopped at the bridge that led to the blue house a little round snout had already appeared from the tallest window, disappeared from it, and darted as fast as it could on its little white legs to greet them.

So Moomintroll didn’t freak out. Or if he did he was very good at hiding it.

“Snufkin!” he called very loudly. Snufkin waved at him and began climbing down on his own; eager not to see the little anarchist splat on the ground by accident Eska got a hold of him and crouched horrendously into a vaguely box-shaped squat, making the green clad lad land safely on the fresh grass.

The troll hugged his friend dearly, overjoyed: “I’m so glad to see you!”

“I’m glad to see you too,” the other replied, calmer yet just as giddy.

Moomin’s attention turned to the placid gigantic corpse still sitting by them and basking in their friendship: “Is this a friend you met on your travels?” he asked, a little intimidated.

“You could say that, I guess,” Snufkin replied: “He was in the forest around the valley, just standing between the trees, and he asked if he could come to Moominhouse with me. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not really, but I wonder what Mamma and Pappa will think.”

“Oh, there’s nothing to worry about. He doesn’t look like he’s one to cause trouble - and he’s rather quiet anyways. I even forgot to ask for his name.”

“Eska.” the factotum rumbled helpfully, making the ground under himself shake from the vibrations of his voice.

Moomintroll offered him a careful paw: “I’m Moomin,” he said. “And this is Snufkin - if he didn’t tell you before.”

Eska shook it with his finger: its palm was the softest of things. ”I know.”

“Would you like some breakfast? Mamma makes pancakes at this hour. They might be a little small for you, though.”

“ ‘s fine.”

Eska laid across the river like a gargantuan lizard and pulled his legs back inside his ribcage once he was no longer suspended over running water; Snufkin and Moomin just used the bridge, because they were of a reasonable size and not as long as an Aztec feathered serpent god.

“What is that?” a tiny voice that seemed like it should have come out of a rachitic old lady asked.

“Hello Little My,” Snufkin greeted back. “That is an Eska.”

The little bastard that was his half-sister ran on her little legs all the way to the factotum’s hand and looked at him up and down, as if evaluating him. If he had grabbed her she might have disappeared in the folds of his palm, but also she would have bit him bloody, so he just let her do  her thing.

“You don’t look like much!” Little My grinned at him, ignoring the human skull-shaped mask on his face.

“You look like Tiny Brother,” Eska replied, ignoring how Thaische looked nothing like the young Mymble.

“I’ll go ask Mamma if she can make some langer pancakes for you,” Moomin distracted him briefly, thus allowing Little My to start climbing all over him. “Please don’t mind Little My. She’s a menace.”

“I know.”

“And don’t try to crush her,” Snufkin added as he followed the troll inside: “It’s very much useless.”

“I know.”

By the time the two came back outside with their plates and Moomin’s curious parents in tow, Little My had tried to poke his eyes out twice, scavenged all of his pockets, slipped into his bib thrice, and almost gotten lost within his hair.

When he had fished her out of it she had asked: “Why do you have so much, anyways?”

“Keeps warm,” he had answered, and she had immediately tried to drown in it again like a little mischievous weasel.

Moominpappa looked at him with a hand under his snout: “What a curious thing you are,” he said pensively, “I’ve never seen such a creature before.”

That was a common thought for people to have when looking at Eska.

Moominmamma handed him a carrier tray full of very small flat circles:  “I’m afraid none of my pans were big enough to make larger ones,” she apologized nicely, “I hope you will still enjoy them.”

He would have picked up the whole tray and slammed the whole thing in his mouth in one go, inedible parts included, but the object was probably the only one the Moomins had. So he picked the minuscule pancakes one by one and nibbled onto each individual one.

They were so good.

“They’re not very filling, I’m afraid,” Moominmamma continued, blissfully dragging around a trembling Sniff trying to hide behind her with his long ears held so far back that they seemed to join on his nape.

Eska gave a long purr that gently shook the entirety of Moominhouse: “ ‘s fine,” he rumbled delighted while his hands began kneading dough on his knees.

His knees seemed much softer... Their texture like that of a duvet.

The air was warm, warmer than spring.

A not necessarily large paw slapped his face.

Ah, he thought with a sigh as he dived into the clicking mass of grey and white fur that was Søppel while she pestered him to be fed.

He felt around for the coffe table where his mask was sitting to slip it on his face, stretched his horrendously long limbs out of his big warm blanket, and slowly emerged with a loud murp. While the opossum wrapped around his neck, an unspecified amount of lizards climbed all over his skeletal frame and into his hair (it was getting so much longer already, he would have needed to trim them again) and little Burkāns snuggled against his side really hard so that he would pick her up. Luna Gealach yelled a goodmorning at him before perching on his head and alerting the whole house by screaming some more.

Perhaps it was the hooded crow’s wails that was stunning him stupid, perhaps the fact that he was already holding a bandicoot in one arm; either way, as soon as Thaische appeared before him to go have breakfast, he swooped them up in a one-armed hug, rumbling for LG to quiet it down (which she did afterwards) and stumbling towards the kitchen like a very strange chimera.

Thaische did not object to the treatment.

“Dr’m’d ‘bout Moom’ns,” he mumbled to his little sibling, who hummed in reply. “W’s big ‘s Moom’nho’s’. ‘n’ Sn’fkin tal’ed t’ me, ‘n’ I tho’t, holy sh’t, ‘s Sn’fkin from th’ Moom’ns. ‘n’ ate... P’ncak’s.”

“Make those.” Thaische said.

“Hm-hm.”

Eska settled down the whole zoo at the table (only exception being Søppel, who permanently resided around his neck at any and all times), leaned his head forward until it was sustained by the wall, and got to making pancakes.

He was about a dozen in when Kim appeared with his hair undone, which meant practically blinded by his own curls.

“You didn’t have to...” his father mumbled.

“Dream’d ab’t Moomins,” Eska replied without stopping. “Snufkin took me to eat p’ncak’s at Moominho’se. There w’re Moomin an’ Little My too.”

“Did she look like me?” Thaische asked.

“She did.”

Kim yawned out a sigh, dark hand covering his mouth because politeness is one hell of a habit to break: “Sounds like a good dream...”

Big corpse pale arms wrapped around his middle, and his wife’s forehead rammed itself right into his ribs as she wasn’t nearly tall enough to reach his scapula. He held  her back as lovingly as their half-asleep state allowed him while she grumbled some kind of affectionate greeting to her adopted sons.

“Met the Moomins tonight,” her oldest repeated while mindlessly keeping on making hordes of breakfast disks.

Niamh’s face peeked from behind her husband: “I think they were the lizards crawling in yer duvet,” she asserted sleepily.

“Met in dream,” Eska rectified. “Snufkin took me to eat pancakes. Am making them now.”

“Ah... I’m glad ye had fun,” his mother opened her eyes fully and looked at the stack of soft round sweets he was readying. She counted thirty-six of them as the vaguely humanoid creature finally came to a stop.

Ah, fuck it.

Saturday breakfast can be insane.

As a treat.