#this is v unpolished but hopefully still entertaining

[the-apocrypha]

Anything you'd like to share on CC8?

(for the WIP game)

Weelllllllll. CC8 was originally going to be a series of short vignettes post-wolf heart that would touch on various little moments. Instead I ended up writing 5k on one particular moment, and have not actually moved on to any of the others. In order to not too obviously spoil what this first 5k vignette is about, you can have a deleted scene instead!

“Also,” Dream says. “Perhaps. I have been reorganizing the larder.” 

“What, little by little, each day?” Hob says, incredulous. 

“Yes.” 

“We can’t possibly own enough food to even fill a shelf, let alone require four days of organization.” 

“Perhaps,” Dream says stiffly, “I am trialing different layouts each day.” 

“Why?” 

“An excellent question,” Dream snips. “For as soon as you have the mobility to do so, you will doubtlessly return the larder to the chaos that you prefer post haste.” 

“It’s not chaos,” Hob protests immediately. Familiarly. “I know exactly where everything is. There is a method.” 

They’ve done this particular bit to death and back again. It feels simultaneously surreal and thrilling to bring it back to life again, here, in this new place. 

“Then explain the method,” Dream says, as he is supposed to.

Hob’s line: “It doesn’t need explaining.”

“It does. Or rather, by definition, in order to be a method it must be capable of explanation, and since you cannot, we are therefore forced to conclude that you do not actually have one.” 

“But you can’t deny that it works,” Hob counters.

“At ensuring no one but yourself will be able to readily locate the ingredients they need? Yes. Very useful, indeed,” Dream says drily, in his turn. “If, for example, we ever need to stop a stranger from assembling a stew too quickly? Or something similarly life-saving?” 

“Just because it’s too complex for you to understand—” 

“And to be explained, apparently.”

“—despite decades of royal education—” 

“My tutors did not cover peasant lunacy.” 

“—the fact is that the organization of the larder,” Hob says regally, “falls to the person who uses it—” 

But he stops, because the script suddenly mismatches, and reality realigns. 

The larder is no longer Hob’s domain. He hasn’t even stepped foot in it. He hasn’t been out of this bed yet. 

“Most,” Dream finishes. 

“...Yes,” Hob agrees. 

“Which would be me, for the foreseeable future,” Dream continues, sliding silkily into the regality that Hob had so abruptly lost. “And so I will organize it as I like, and enjoy this brief holiday of rationality, before you drive it back into madness once more.” 

Hob scowls. “Don’t get too comfy in there.”