#windupiceheart

[staticcolour]

[hqmillioncorn]

Let me Show you my Pure Maiden's Heart!

“Wow…How could this happen?” B’ig Nunh shook his head, the supposed corpse of Hildibrand lay at his feet.  “He’s not dead!” Babycorn stomped her foot on the ground. “I could tell! Sin eaters smell a certain way when they die!” It was sort of a mix between a campfire and corn chips. Unfortunately it did smell a little delicious.  At that moment an echo vision began to ring in everyone’s ears. Everyone hunched over, holding their heads in pain. Babycorn tried so hard to keep her eyes open and her mind clear to make sure that Hildibrand didn’t go anywhere. But it was no use. Hey. …Why was it just static?

ffxiv write day 29: Soulmate with @windupnamazu 's lunya and butter and coco cocoda whos also @bobacupcake 's and @windupiceheart 's vertical and big nunh

somehow further hildibrand adventures! what unfortunate event could have befallen out beloved inspector?!

Tragedy had struck in Radz-at-Han! 

As if by divine happenstance, or in everyone else’s cause, an evil coincidence. It turned out that the portal that had once swallowed Inspector Hildibrand, Nashu and Gilgamesh up way back when had apparently dropped them off just an entire continent away. 

It was a fact that filled Babycorn with joy and Butter with dread. 

Pancake was also confused, surely the curse/spell she cast with Linnet should have lasted longer than this? Maybe they just needed more of Hildibrand’s hair? She knew she should have just taken the entire locket. Cherrypit had been practically pushing it into her hands. 

As soon as the gang ran into Nashu and she explained the whole situation, not even the scariest crate full of fish could stop Babycorn from following her all the way to where she had told them the Inspector was. 

True to Nashu’s word the Inspector was there, they had both escaped the scary portal they had fallen into relatively unscathed. For the most part. Nashu had also explained that Hildibrand had seemingly fallen into a deep slumber that he wasn’t waking up from.

“I’ve tried everything!” Nashu lamented, “Someone had told me to try using something called a cymbal but when I did-they broke into pieces! And they weren’t loud at all!” Unknown to everyone there Nashu had actually just grabbed two ornamental plates and banged them together thinking they were cymbals. They looked remarkably similar. 

Taking a break from her groveling Babycorn’s pom spiked up, she had an idea. “Have you tried breaking a plate?! That’s pretty loud!” Of course she spoke from experience. 

“Oh!” Nashu’s eyes widened, “Why didn’t I think of that?!” Babycorn was always so resourceful. 

At this point Lunya had to step in. She grabbed Babycorn and carried her to what basically was the other side of the room. “I swear to god we can’t let you near each other like this.” Something about Babycorn even being near Hildibrand and Nashu in a close vicinity made the stupidity of the room increase tenfold. 

And that was the last thing they needed right now. 

Ideas began to bounce around the room and that was enough of a distraction for Babycorn to sneak back across the room from the corner Lunya had placed her into. Literally everyone noticed her doing this but Lunya was too lazy to carry her back and Butter didn’t want to make Babycorn sad.

Babycorn stopped right next to Vertical and looked up at her. “Hey! Hey! Vertical! It’s me!” 

Vertical looked down and smiled. “hey babycorn we’re just about to explore hildibrand’s body do you want to help?” 

Babycorn made a face that looked like a surprised baby chick. 

In the matter of a split second, Lunya was right behind Babycorn, covering her very long ears with her hands. “Don’t say it like that in front of her!?” Not that Vertical was wrong but it was a dangerous game talking like that in front of Babycorn. “She’s going to start saying that around people and then what will people think…?”  

Vertical grinned, “hahahahaha.”

Butter was seconds from death, or from smothering Hildibrand with a pillow. Whichever came first. 

Somehow even after that Babycorn was allowed to climb onto the bed. She sat on her knees on the edge of the bed and looked at Hildibrand with her shimmering eyes. “He looks just like a sleeping prince…”

“Or a corpse.” Lunya chimed in. 

“If only…” Butter whispered under his breath. 

Babycorn poked at Hildibrand’s arm. There was no response. Babycorn thought about something familiar about this entire situation. “I think someone read a story to me just like this once….” It was either somewhere between a long time ago or just yesterday. “I remember now-! It was a story about a cursed princess that was stuck sleeping for a long time.!”

“Oh I love that one!” Nashu exclaimed, “My favorite part is the part where the princess falls asleep. A nap actually sounds really nice right about now…” 

“That’s the one!” Babycorn hopped off the bed and ran around the bed to be closer to Hildibrand. “Which means if this is like that-! Then we can wake up Hildibrand with a kiss from his true love~!” Of course Inspectors Hildibrand’s true love had to be no one but her!! “I’ll kiss him and wake him up from his eternal slumber!!”

A wave of dread washed over everyone. Especially Butter. 

It kind of looked like he had just died then and there. 

“Doesn’t my idea sound great?!” Babycorn stood up on the bed and looked at every one of her friends, expecting them to call her a genius and praise her on her ingenuity. And then they would all come to the wedding between her and Hildibrand where there would be lots of cake and-!

Lunya walked over and picked Babycorn up, carrying her back to her corner. “Alright that’s enough. We’ll figure something else out before you kill my son.” 

“But it was a good idea! Let me try at least once!?”

“Absolutely not!”

It was decided, they were all going to go to the First and get Hildibrand’s spirit back to his own body! Preferably in one piece! And if not in one piece, then they would just put him together when they got back.

Of course not everyone could go to the First. One of the ones to stay behind was Butter. He was very sad about it, more worried that Babycorn would find herself hungry for a snack and he couldn’t be there to give her one he had packed. 

Reluctantly, and while waving an embroidered handkerchief, Butter saw everyone off. 

Meanwhile back on the First, clues of where Hildibrand could be lead them to the middle of Lakeland. With help from familiar faces (specifically named Theyler and Vonard) they were all able to find the elusive Gentleman. In a form none were expecting to find him in.

“A SIN EATER?!” Babycorn wailed so loudly that even Lyna, who was back at the Crystarium, heard her. 

“Wow…” B’ig Nunh looked up at the tree above them, most everybody else was pretty much speechless. “Kind of majestic if you think about it.” 

“It’s really not.” Lunya tiredly sighed. 

Babycorn ran up towards Hildibrand, almost placing herself right under the branch he was standing on. “Hildiiiii! It’s me! Babycorn! I-I know I look different but you have to remember me!!” Tears were streaming from her eyes, “Even if you’re a sin eater I promise I won’t eat you like the other one! I promise! Even if your wings look really yummy from here!” 

“What did she just say?” Coco was getting scared. 

Hildibrand looked down at the group of people under him. He swore he could recognize some of them. Something in his mind was trying to remind him of that. It wasn’t until Hildibrand’s eyes fell upon the lalafell most familiar to him. 

“Ah-! If it isn’t Lunya Lanya! I’ve heard you and the ‘Crystal Exarch’ were married recently. I offer my congratulations!” He struck a most gentlemanly pose. “I’m glad you were able to find happiness and I trust your pursuit of me has come to an end?”  

All eyes were on Lunya–fearful of what she would do next.

Her eyes were closed and there was a smile on her face. “Ahahahaha…” She stepped back and in an instant pulled out a comically large hammer from basically nowhere. It was triple her size and adorned with jewels. “I’ll handle this.” 

“NOOOOOOOOO!!!!” Babycorn sobbed. She was on the ground holding onto Lunya’s leg. 

“Verty?” Lunya looked up at Vertical with a smile still on her face. “Do you still have the present Nashu gave us?” She had been entrusted to hold onto it for some reason I don’t care to explain. “uh yeah.” Vertical pulled it out and showed it off. It was a bomb, thankfully still unlit. For now.

“Great!” Lunya beamed, “Throw it in the air and I’ll hit it towards him and then give him a few bonks to the head! That’ll fix him!” She paused. “Or kill him. We’ll just have to see!”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” Babycorn sobbed even louder.

Coco looked back and forth from everyone in a panic. There was a lot happening. “Are we just going to ignore what Babycorn said?!”

[heirsofdiscord]

trying to figure out how to draw chibis

feat @windupiceheart's B'ig & Vertical

[windupnamazu]

loot it or lose it!

ffxivwrite2023 #16: jerk a quick, sharp, sudden movement.

Lunya & @windupiceheart's Vertical. MMO Gamer AU. 272wc. ⮞ EVEYBODY SO MEAN 2 ME

"My parse is gonna be shit," Lunya grumbled as she scraped herself off the floor of the P9S arena, automatically opening her character menu to repair her barely-dented gear.

"It's okay, Lu," G'raha soothed. "I'm probably not going to break out of green this week."

"But I am!" their WAR proudly proclaimed to a tired chorus of boo!s.

Across the room, Coco was sprinting for the chests, the pom of his beret bobbing up and down as he leapt onto them before the rando SCH in their party could.

"Roll on everything!" he cheered, followed by the sound of mice and controllers clicking across four pieces of loot. One of the many perils of not having a proper static or consistent raiding time was sometimes there was a PUG member threatening to take every drop for the week, which had happened several times before and forced everyone into a FFA system.

Vertical Height rolls Need on the ➤ Ascension Necklace Coffer (IL 660). 98! Ligaya Lisuga rolls Need on the ➤ Ascension Necklace Coffer (IL 660). 75! Vertical Height obtains an ➤ Ascension Necklace Coffer (IL 660)!

"NO!" Lunya shrieked. "VERTTY, THAT WAS BIS!"

"Oh," said Verone, thief of pieces that weren't even BiS for MNK. She sounded as devastated as a woman with a very quiet and not terribly emotional voice possibly could. "I'm sorry."

"I could have gotten full right-side BiS this week if I got that," the younger girl moaned. There was a clacking as her forehead hit her mechanical keyboard. "Ouuuuuuugh, Raha, you have to buy me a snaaaaaack."

"Of course, Lu."

"Sorry," Verone repeated, sounding smaller.

[lordofcrowns]

Some sketches of some lovely lasses from today’s art party.

( @windup-dragoon​ & @windupiceheart​ )

[windup-dragoon]

Festival days are best spent together! 

A beautiful commission done by @windupiceheart !!!!!!!! THANK YOU SO SO MUCH! 

[hqmillioncorn]

Did someone say Happy Nameday?!

“Happy nameday Rori!!!” Babycorn popped out of the ground in front of Rori. After Rori finished screaming he was finally able to process what Babycorn had said to him. It was only just a little bit weird. By her standards. “It’s. Not my nameday??” Rori didn’t even remember ever mentioning his nameday around Babycorn.  “I just know it’s your nameday cause Cherry told me so!” Right next to Babycorn the smaller and younger Cherrypit popped out of the ground as well. “Bah!” He wisely said. Of course he actually had no idea when Rori’s nameday was. He had just read Rori’s mind and picked out a random day. “Here we got you a present!” Babycorn rumaged through Hungstal for a bit before finding what she was looking for. “Ah-HA! Tada!” She held up her present proudly, “The newest B’ig Nunh almanac! I got it just for you!” “...T Thanks.” 

ffxiv write day 24: bar

with @windupiceheart 's rorichaux

on a day like any other babycorn is going to talk to her good friend rori :)

Another year passed, and with it came another Valentiones Day. With the festivities in Gridiania coming to a close for the day. Though that didn’t mean that everyone was gone by now.

Rori let out a yawn. His shift was almost over and soon he would be free.

Free to do whatever it was that Roris did with the time they spent not working. Perhaps he would go on a jog or eat a delicious meal. Truly the possibilities were endless. Yes, it would just a few more minutes until-

Something made Rori pause, something was coming. 

Or more like someone. 

Because even from far away, he could hear the telltale cry of someone yelling out his name. Followed by the sounds of several tiny little steps that could only come from a lalafell wearing a pom on her head. Rori figured that this might as well happen. 

It had been almost an entire day since Babycorn had last visited him during his work hours. Either she was slacking or she had finally died. There was no inbetween or any other explanation for her absence. 

The approaching cloud of dust was enough for Rori to confirm that it was indeed Babycorn heading his way. “Yeah okay.” He grabbed onto a nearby post and braced himself for impact. Then as the cloud of dust got closer and closer, a strong breeze blew past Rori, almost blowing him into the air like the stick-bug he was. 

When the wind died down opened his eyes, looking down to see Babycorn grabbing onto his leg like she was about to fly away instead. Babycorn looked up to stare at Rori with her huge and shimmering bug-like yellow eyes. “Hi Mister Rori-Chow!!” 

“Hi Babycorn.” Rori greeted her. 

He extended his leg out and waited for Babycorn to let go. Once she did, she plopped onto the ground. Looking more like a rag doll that had fallen off the shelf. “It’s Ro-ri-Show.” Rori explained for the hundredth time now. He hoped that breaking it down into sections would help Babycorn get his name right. His first mistake was to hope that Babycorn do anything right. 

“Okay Mister Rori!” Babycorn saluted him. 

Rori sighed, the first of many to come. 

Babycorn bounced back a step and placed her hands behind her back. She was wearing a strange outfit Rori had never seen on her. The big poofy skirt she was wearing sort of made her look like a giant cupcake. Complete with sprinkles. From what Rori knew of Babycorn he wagered that those were real sprinkles. 

There was also a massive candle on her head. Thankfully it wasn’t on fire. 

“Mister Rori! I have a surprise for you~!” Babycorn threateningly sang out loud. She didn’t mean for it to sound like a threat. It just sort of happened whenever Babycorn told people she had a surprise for them. “It’s right behind my back~” 

“Y-Yeah. Sure. Alright.” 

There was absolutely nothing to be afraid of. 

Unless this ‘surprise’ took eleven hours for Babycorn to explain like the last one had. 

Babycorn did a cute little twirl and extended her hand out to Rori. “I wanna invite you to my nameday party!!” That sounded normal enough.

At least, it was normal. Until Rori looked down to see what Babycorn was handing him.

Babycorn’s left hand was stuck inside of a glass jar. 

“Um.” Rori truly was at a loss for words. Which is why he just continued to stare at the jar around Babycorn’s hand and at Babycorn’s rapidly blinking face for the next few seconds. “What’s that you got there?” Rori finally worked up the courage to ask. 

Babycorn wasn’t sure what Rori was talking about. Pretty evident considering the confused smile she was giving him. “Hmm? What? Where?” She turned around in a spin, looking for something that was on her. Like an excited dog chasing its own tail. 

It was kind of cute. “I’m talking about the jar on your hand.” It reminded Rori of the time Babycorn stuck her hand inside of an anthill. Only pulling it out when he told her she could. Then Rori had to take a two hour bath to get all the ants out of his hair after 

“Oh this?” Babycorn wiggled her hand around. There was a simple explanation to this actually. “I was eating berries and I thought there were none left but I saw there was one more and put my hand inside to grab it!” She brought the jar closer to her and bit it for a while before giving up. 

Previous teeth marks showed that she had tried this before. “I also got the invitation to my party inside! See? See? I’m holding it!”  Babycorn held her hand up as high as she could for Rori to see.

Rori looked as close as he could. The jar looked pretty empty, aside from the obvious. True to Babycorn’s word her hand was wrapped around a now pretty crumpled piece of paper. That must have been the elusive nameday party invitation.

Even so this was far from the weirdest thing Babycorn had done.  As far as he knew. And yet, Rori still had to ask. “Why did you put your hand back in to eat berries with the invitation in your hand?” 

“Uhhhhhhhhh…” It seemed Babycorn didn’t have an answer. 

Not to mention that the jar looked pretty empty. There were berries in there bouncing alongside Babycorn’s hand and the invitation. “Were there actually any berries left in there?”

“There were!” This time Babycorn was quick to answer, “I ate em’ and then I put my hand back in the jar.”

“...Why?”

“I forgot it was empty!!”

“...” Rori had no idea what he was supposed to say next. There was a part of him that truly wondered how Babycorn had managed to stay alive this long. Was it luck? Was it fate? Was it some inexplicable third thing? 

Whatever it really was–Rori was glad that Babycorn always bounced back. Even if it came at the cost of several hours of hearing her yapping about some neat rock she found yesterday under a moldy piece of bread that she later ate and saved half of it for Rori.

“Wait-!” Babycorn suddenly exclaimed, “I know how to get this off me!” 

“How?” Rori asked genuinely wondering what sort of method Babycorn was going to come up with. Maybe something like licking it off? That sounded plausible. Though she could have never guessed what was going to happen next.

Without a moment's hesitation–Babycorn slammed the jar into the ground. It smashed into teeny tiny little glass shards. “Yay! My hands out!” Babycorn let out a cheer and waved her hand around. Weirdly enough it was kind of hurting but surely that would go away on its own eventually.

Rori stood frozen, mouth hanging wide open. “a,” That was the only thing he could manage to say. At least until he said the next thing, “You’re-uh bleeding. Um we should probably….” Probably go get that fixed or something. That was the smart move. Right. What the heck.

Babycorn looked at Rori, confused. Until she looked down at her hand. “I guess I’m bleeding now!” She said with a grin on her face. Bleeding suddenly from her body wasn't something Babycorn was unfamiliar with. 

This was the same girl who had an eternally bleeding scar on her body since childhood. 

“Uhhhhhh. Let’s just get some bandages for that.” 

Rori led Babycorn to the first-aid station they luckily had on hand. Turns out there were many accidents that happened to be related to Valentiones day. Babycorn walked behind Rori like a baby duck following her mom. As they neared their destination she suddenly remembered something! The very thing she was still holding in her hands.

“Mister Rori! Here! You can have my invitation now!” Babycorn held it up and waved it at Rori. Waiting excitedly for him to take it. “Here! Here! Here! Mister Rori! Mister Rori! Mister Rori!”

As ‘excited’ as Rori was to take a blood stained invitation he decided to tell Babycorn he would take it after tending to her hand. “I’ll go to your party. It’s not an invitation only party, right?”

“Nope!” Babycorn shook her head. “I think everyone should come to my twenty-seven nameday party! I made invitations so I could drop them from the sky all over everywhere!”

“That’s nice-”

Wait. Rori stopped dead in his tracks. Had Rori heard right? “...How old are you turning?”

“I’m turning twenty-seven!!” Babycorn winked and stuck her tongue out. Posing with her fingers pressed against her rosy freckled cheeks. 

Rori paused, taking in what he had just heard. 

“...You’re twenty-SEVEN?!” 

Babycorn was ONE YEAR YOUNGER THAN HIM?!?!?!

[hqmillioncorn]

Food for Thoughts

“Oh Mister Roriiiiiiiiiii!!!”  Rori braced himself for the inevitable. The inescapable fate of Babycorn Corn running up to him ready to talk both his ears off with some nonsense topic that somehow always, somehow, popped up in her little head.  It always seemed to be during work too. On the bright side she wasn’t asking him what Valentiones day was every time she walked by him. He didn’t even remember when the last time she asked about that was.  Finally, Babycorn arrived. Sitting herself down on some empty crates that might as well have been placed there just for her. “Hiya Mister Rori!” Babycorn greeted him. Cherrypit waved at him from on top of Babycorn’s head. “Hiya.” Rori waved back. “Mister Rori? Do you know where snow comes from?” “The sky?” “Ooooooh!” Yeah that made sense. “How does the sky make it?!”  

ffxiv write day 2: Horizon with @windupnamazu 's Butter and oleo and momoka and @windupiceheart 's rori at the start :)

babycorns always been good at taking care of plants but the truth is they just grow without her trying who can she ask for more plant facts to put in her little head.......

With one last pat-pat of the ground Babycorn smiled with satisfaction at the new little dahlia sprout she had managed to plant in the mansion’s garden without incident. “Wow! That went way better than last time!” Last time referred to the incident just last week when Babycorn managed to set fire to the entire garden by just trying to plant some peonies. 

Thankfully there had been no one around at the time so she was able to use her conveniently fate bending Starsinger powers to make it so like it never happened! Hooray! 

Sure doing that gave her a fever that lasted a whole week but it was worth it to not ruin her friend’s hard work. 

Speaking of…

Babycorn turned her head to look behind herself. A lot more people had begun to hang around the yard since the last seven hours when she first started working in the garden. She was more glad than ever that she didn’t accidentally set the garden on fire again. 

From her vantage point alone she could see Momoka sitting in her usual spot and looking around at everyone else. Just like she was doing! B’ig Nunh was talking about something with Vertical sitting underneath some shade. Whatever it was about–Babycorn couldn’t hear. 

Both Pancake and Linnet were huddled over a huge piece of paper, giggling to themselves. An assortment of art supplies were thrown around them. It looked like Cinnamon was also helping them with whatever they were doing. 

Babycorn also noticed Oleo leaning up against the fence and a pair of mysterious Butter-like ears poking out from behind a hydrangea bush. It was a little hard to see. No matter how much Babycorn leaned in one direction. 

Oh well, she would go and say hi later. 

Babycorn turned her attention to more flowery matters. “Okay little plant! Go ahead and grow up big and strong!!” She stood up and raised both her arms in the air, in her best attempt to motivate her newest tiny little plant. It was her first time growing something outside of a pot so there was a bit of apprehension about the whole thing. “...But I’m sure it’s gonna be fine!” She tried to assure herself. 

“Fine! Fine!” Cherrypit took some time from digging a hole in the yard to assure his sister her worries were nothing to be worried about. “Bebes good at flowers!” 

Cherrypit was telling the truth. Because for some inexplicable and unexplainable reason Babycorn was very talented at raising all sorts of different plants. No matter what sorts of horrors those things were subjected to, they all ended up blooming in the end. 

At least, indoors they did. The day Babycorn finally attempted to grow something outside again for the first time in years it caused an acidic secretion to begin oozing out of the grounds of the Lavender Beds. The fire incident was actually her second attempt.

Needless to say, Babycorn had no idea what she was actually doing.

“Hmm…” Babycorn hummed to herself. “Hey Cherry?” She turned to look at her brother who was now successfully filling his new dug hole with hose water. “Myeah?” Cherrypit tilted his head curiously. He stared right at his sister as he grabbed a stick from the garden and threw it into the muddy water. 

“Do you think I’m growing flowers the right way?” 

“Myabbababa Gabaga!!” Cherrypit helpfully babbled. It probably meant something along the lines of, “If the flowers and vegetables you’re planting are actually growing then you’re probably doing it right!” Then he grabbed a handful of leaves and put them in his mouth. Dropping the few leaves still stuck on his hand into the mud along with the stick.

“Yeah! You’re probably right!” Her brother was so smart. She was so proud of him! But it didn’t take very long for a hint of doubt to crawl its way into Babycorn’s thoughts. “Well…I don’t think that people's plants usually start fires…Right?” Like Vertical’s plants! Babycorn had seen her planting new ones before and they never even so much as sizzled like her plants did!

Now that she really thought about it, there was a weird memory in her head about Vertical and a bunch of other people! Whenever Babycorn would catch someone in the garden they usually had something in their hands. The thing was a really strange shape! 

It sort of reminded Babycorn of a teapot! Something that, by the way, she should not be drinking out of. 

There were a lot of things that Babycorn knew she didn’t know. The names of certain things was one of them. If this was anything like those other billion things then this was probably something that everyone else in the world knew about except for her. 

It didn’t bother her that much. Not unless it caught her on a bad day. 

Babycorn pushed herself off the ground, her knees and hands were almost caked in mud. All thanks to a certain toddler’s playtime.  As Babycorn shook herself clean of any dirt she had on her she could feel that today was anything but a bad day. 

With a twinkle in her eyes she turned around to see if Vertical was still around so she could ask what was in her hands that day.  Sadly both Vertical and B’ig were long gone. They must have left some time between when Babycorn saw them and now.

Trying her best to ignore the rising dread in her chest at not knowing where her friends were, Babycorn looked around for anyone else that could answer her question. 

Unfortunately for her the twinkle in her eyes was giving away her intentions to everyone around her. 

It was a very familiar look to everyone and everything that knew Babycorn by now. It was a look of curiosity. A sign that Babycorn was about to run over to you and seek your guidance about a certain something. Something that sounded very simple, yes. 

Except there was a catch. Where there was one question, a couple of hundred always followed suit. 

Not many had the endurance (mostly the time) to go through a round of Babycorn’s question gauntlet. 

Momoka was the first to notice what was going on. Her eyes grew wide as she grabbed a convenient flower vase placed in the center of the table. She sneakily slid it in front of herself to cover her face in a successful attempt to take advantage of Babycorn’s lack of object permanence. 

Babycorn gasped, “Woah! Where did Momoka go?!” It was like she was here one second and gone the next. How mysterious…

With Momoka out of the question Babycorn thought about asking Pancake and Linnet if they knew what she was thinking about. As she handed Cherrypit another stick for his little project she figured that both girls looked really busy. “I don’t wanna bother them…” Whatever it was they were doing it looked really important. 

(Babycorn had no way of knowing but it was very important. Both girls were planning the eventual Butter and Babycorn wedding of the future.) 

Babycorn’s eyes drifted over to Oleo and what she could see of Butter’s ears. As soon as she looked in their direction she noticed Oleo talking to someone next to him, hitting them with his elbow and pointing right at Babycorn. 

Babycorn grinned, putting her hands together in excitement. “I’ll be right back, Cherry! Don’t go anywhere!” Cherrypit looked up from stirring his creation together. “Okay!” He lifted up the stick from the mud and waved it around happily. 

Just as Babycorn began to step towards Oleo and the pair of ears–the front door to the mansion opened up. Grabbing Babycorn’s full attention. 

“Sirius!!” Babycorn waved her arms up and down at the sight of her second self-proclaimed BFFFL. (best friend for life) Sirius closed the door behind and hurriedly walked his way past Babycorn without a word. He more than recognized that look in her eyes. “Hey! Wait a second I have a question!” Babycorn followed right after him even when he started to pick up the pace. 

“Sorry, busy”

“Did Lunya ask ya to pick something up again?” Babycorn walked around him almost in a circle. It was almost a surprise she wasn’t tripping over her own two feet. 

“It’s something like that.” 

“Did she forget an ingredient in something and she’s asking you to go buy it before it’s too late?” 

Sirius stopped walking to give Babycorn a break in trying to not fall flat on her face. Which ended up happening anyway because of his sudden stop. “Yeah, exactly like that.” Sirius helped Babycorn up from the ground and turned to keep going towards Gridania. He was starting to have his suspicions that the doll in the kitchen was doing more than just sitting there. 

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaait!!!” Babycorn yelled out at the top of her lungs even though Sirius hadn’t gone anywhere. “I had a question about the garden! It’s super duper ultra important!!” 

Sirius stopped once again and noticed Oleo and Butter standing almost right next to where he and Babycorn were. “If it's a question about the garden you could ask someone who works in the garden and isn’t busy.” While Babycorn wondered where she could find such a specific person–Sirius walked closer to the bush and cleared away some of the leaves so Butter could be in Babycorn’s sight. 

“Oh! Butts!” That was who those ears belonged to!!

“Exactly like him.” With the coast clear Sirius made his exit as fast as he could. 

Butter straightened up and smiled at Babycorn. “H-Hi!” His whole escapade of hiding in the hydrangea bushes was mostly Oleo’s idea. Something about how Babycorn tended to hide in the same bushes. 

Then when they bumped into each other in the same place Butter could hit Babycorn with a pick-up line Oleo gave him. “Psst-!” Oleo leaned in closer to Butter, “The line! Don’t forget the line-!” He whispered as loudly as he could. 

“Right!” Butter looked at Babycorn and almost froze up again. Something about the lumps of wet mud in her hair were sending him into a tizzy. “Um. Uh. Do you come here off-often..??” he was finally able to spit out. 

Oleo gave him a thumbs-up. As a certified lady woo-er he was more than sure this would be enough to win Babycorn’s heart.

Babycorn grinned. “Well yeah! Cause I live here! You live here too!” She turned to look at Oleo. “You don’t live here Oleo but I do know where you live so it’s okay!!” 

“Thanks…?” Oleo had no idea what Babycorn meant by that. 

Butter giggled to himself. “You’re sooo right! Ehehehe…” Babycorn started laughing right alongside him. Her laugh was so cute, too cute. Butter made a note to thank Oleo for his idea later, it had worked out after all. 

The gears in Babycorn’s head began to turn again. “Oh right!” She grabbed Butter’s hand with her dirt caked one and began to drag him back to the garden with her. Just as Oleo thought he was in the clear, Babycorn rounded back and grabbed him by his arm. “Nooooo! Babycorn wait-!!” He couldn’t be walking around with mud caked all over his sweet jacket!! 

Once all three of them were back in front of the garden Babycorn sat down in the mud and pointed at her plant. “Um-! Um! What’s that thing called that you hold over the plant? It like…Looks like a big teapot!!” Her arms were flying all over the place trying to make a shape she had no idea looked like. 

Butter of course knew instantly what Babycorn was talking about. “Those are called watering cans!” The one he used was blue, like the color of his jacket. Pancake painted it herself so he would know which one was his. 

“Cooooooool!” The easily impressed Babycorn was amazed to finally have her answer. As the prophecy foretold however, after one question another soon followed suit. “What’s a watering can for?” Sure now she knew what the name of one was, but why were people using it? Was it important?

“They’re for watering plants!” Butter did a little gesture like he was holding some sort of invisible watering can. Dropping some invisible water on Babycorn’s little sprout. 

“Watering?” Babycorn blinked, “What’s that?” 

This time Oleo was the one to answer. “That’s when you drop a bunch of water on a plant.” He paused to think. “You can’t give it too much cause then it uh, drowns. Or something like that.” 

“A plant can drown?!?!”

“Kinda-! Yeah!” Butter didn’t want Babycorn to get scared of watering her plants. “Plants need water though! It’s just not a good thing to give them too much!”

“Yeah! Just like us!” Oleo helpfully added. “We need food and water. Just like plants do!” 

“Woaaah….!!!” Babycorn eyes sparkled with excitement. There were so many things in the world she had no idea about! There was a desire in her to learn as much as she could. She was just so happy that she had so many friends around her that knew so much about all sorts of things. Maybe someday she could even teach them about something that she knew about. 

Babycorn made a note to give Butter and Oleo a thank-you big hug later. 

(a hug that oleo would successfully leave to his bro after excusing himself to go water his plants) 

“Oh! And what do plants eat?! Do they like eating candy like me?! I’ve got lotsa candy!!” 

“Not exactly!” Butter answered. 

All three were so engrossed in their questions and answers that they didn’t even notice Momoka scooting in closer and closer. Just in case, she was still holding the flower vase in front of her face. Her attempt to get any closer was stopped when she felt something touch her leg. 

In a panic she looked down to see a stain of mud on her boots. Not only that, there was a mud caked baby looking right up at her. With a smile on his face he held up a stick with a huge glob of mud hanging off the end. “Wan’ soup?” Cherrypit asked.

[hqmillioncorn]

Blow me away!

As Babycorn rounded a corner with a wallet full of gil her eyes caught of sight of something absolutely horrifying. The image of her good friend B'ig Nunh in miniature form. Which would have been pretty scary on its own but Babycorn was so caught off guard by it that she believed it not to be a toy- But instead that someone had taken B'ig Nunh and shrunken him to be S'mall Nunh. How was his name going to be B'ig Nunh if he was so small?!?!!? As Babycorn held him in her hands and wailed loudly the shopkeeper could only look at her, very confused and afraid.

Lalapril 4/12 Zephyr with @windupiceheart 's vertical height and b'ig nunh

babycorn and cherrypit try to fly a kite and run into some besties :)

It was a particularly windy day in the Lavender Beds today. The wind was so strong today that hanging up laundry to dry would probably be too dangerous.

That was how Babycorn had successfully gotten out of having to do that particular chore. Instead she and Cherrypit decided to spend that time doing something way more fun. 

Something like flying the new kite they bought yesterday!

Babycorn adjusted the ribbon holding her ponytail back. Her hair had been blowing itself in front of her face ever since they first stepped outside and it was getting really annoying at this point.  “Ready Cherry?” Babycorn called out. She bent down and picked up the end of the kite line. 

In front of her Cherrypit was holding onto the kite itself. He had been waiting for this moment ever since yesterday. Cherrypit was practically vibrating with excitement, “Go! Go? Time to go?!” 

Babycorn looked up at the wisteria tree hanging above them. The leaves (or whatever those things were) blew in the direction towards Cherrypit. “Okay! Go Cherrypit!” Babycorn shouted.

“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!” Cherrypit shrieked. His pent up energy was finally released as he took off running out of the mansion’s front entrance and down the hill. His laughter echoed throughout the entire ward.

Babycorn, meanwhile, was just glad to be along for the ride. 

Seeing as she was currently just getting dragged by her feet across Cherrypit’s entire path she assumed that he must have been too excited about the kite to remember that he had to let go of the kite at some point. “He’s so cute…” Babycorn smiled as she was dragged across a small puddle of water. 

Her shoes were all wet now but the good news was that the wind would probably dry them out soon. 

Babycorn wondered just how far Cherrypit would run, not that she minded it but lunch was supposed to be in a few hours or so and she didn’t want to miss it. It was spaghetti for lunch today!

She looked in front of the path that awaited her and recognized two of the people near the marketboard.

“Oh!” 

It looked like Cherrypit had recognized them too, as he was running around them and Babycorn could hear him laughing from where she was. In other news it looked like waving at his friends had caused Cherrypit to let the kite go. It took no time for it to take to the air. 

“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!! Verticaaaaaaaaaaaal!!” Babycorn yelled as she continued to be dragged by the remaining kite line. Any second now she was sure to stop. “Hiiiiiiiiiii!! B’iiiiiiiiiiiiig!!!!!”

Vertical looked behind her and watched as Babycorn was dragged by her feet across the path in front of her until she came to a complete stop. “hey babycorn.” She waved at Babycorn as B’ig Nunh popped in from behind her. “Hey Babycorn!” He greeted her the same.

“Hehe!” Babycorn laughed to herself and swayed in joy in the wind. “Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!” She kept greeting her friends over and over, she was just really happy to see them. Almost as happy as Cherrypit was. He had run over to stand next to Babycorn to join her in swaying back and forth happily. 

“What are you two up to today?” B’ig asked. He remained totally still as Cherrypit jumped on top of his hat and started to swipe at his heart shaped pom. 

“I’m flying a kite today!” Babycorn looked particularly proud of it. 

“Kite! Flying a kite!!” Cherrypit added. 

Vertical looked up at where Babycorn was pointing. “cool kite.” 

B’ig instead started from the end of the kite line in Babycorn’s hands as his eyes traveled up the line all the way to the kite itself.

Then B’ig almost burst into flames when he realized that the kite that Babycorn was flying was distinctly shaped like his pair of couerl briefs. 

Just like, three times larger than usual. 

“W-W-W-Where did you get those?!?!!?” B’ig was going to cry. His biggest fear was that Babycorn had somehow broken into the laundry room again.

“Huh? Get what?”

“THOSE!” B’ig Nunh yelled at the top of his lungs and pointed up at the kite high up in the air where anyone in the Lavender Beds right now could simply look up and see it. 

“Oooooh! That!” Babycorn laughed to herself and Cherrypit started laughing alongside her not too long after. “I bought it!” she explained, pulling on the string of the kite to keep it steady. 

“where did you buy something like that?” Vertical asked in place of B’ig, who at this point had decided that he was going to just lie down on the ground and cope. 

“There was some little pop-up store in Limsa Lominsa that was selling a bunch of B’iggy things! Like this kite! And this!” Babycorn held up a fan that had B’ig Nunh’s face on it alongside some text that said ‘Never give up!’ or something like that. Babycorn waved the fan at her face and giggled, “Me and Cherry bought out the whole stand with the allowance Lunya gave us yesterday!” 

As Babycorn continued to laugh almost manically, B’ig Nunh visibly grimaced. This whole B’ig Nunh merch thing was probably not going to go over well with Tataru if she ever found out. The danger of him having to pose for another calendar for next year was far too real for his liking. 

As B’ig Nunh was thinking about what other ways Tataru could profit off his existence, another strong breeze came right at them.

The wind was strong enough to pick up the kite and lift Babycorn up from the ground. “WAaaAAAAHHHHH!” Babycorn shrieked in terror. Being dragged along for the ride was one thing but she wasn’t a big fan of being too high up from the ground.

“watch out.” Vertical acted fast and grabbed Babycorn before she could fly up any higher. “don’t worry. i got you.” She wasn’t about to let her good friend Babycorn Corn fly up into the sun to never return. 

“We got chuchu!” Cherrypit climbed ontop of Vertical’s head and grabbed a part of Babycorn’s skirt, specifically part of the long ribbon that was attached to it. “Got Bebe!” Cherrypit lightly tugged on the ribbon. He didn’t want to tear it off the skirt. 

“Uwuabwaubwua…Thanks you guuuyyys…” Babycorn cried as Vertical gently set her back onto solid ground.

“there you go.” Vertical carefully let go of her, making sure to hover her hands around Babycorn just in case another strong gust of wind suddenly came barging in. When it looked like the coast was clear she took a step back and sighed. 

It looked like Babycorn was going to thank Vertical once again but as soon as she opened her mouth, her eyes widened in surprise. 

“Oh!” Babycorn reached into her back pocket and from out of it she pulled out a small object wrapped in paper. “I forgot I got you something Vertical! I think you’ll like iiiiit!” Babycorn stretched her arm up to reach Vertical but came up very short.

On account that Babycorn was very short. 

Vertical instead bent down herself to grab the gift from Babycorn. “thank you babycorn.” She inspected the wrapped gift closely before beginning to unwrap it. There was something very familiar about the shape of the gift.

“As soon as I saw it I just knew I had to get it for you!!” Babycorn excitedly tapped her feet on the ground. “It was the only one left too! Can you believe it?!” She must have really lucked out. Babycorn was well aware of how popular B’ig was so of course it being almost sold out made sense. It must have been fate! 

When all of the very ugly wrapping paper was finally off Vertical saw what it was that Babycorn had been so excited to gift to her. “oh!” It was a one-of-a-kind knock off B’ig Nunh bobblehead figure. Its head wobbled in the air as it gave whoever was holding it a thumbs-up.

B’ig felt a little flattered about it but he couldn’t help but think if his head was really that big. Probably not. “Wait, these were almost sold out?!” He had to admit they were cute but just how many were they selling to have them sold out so quickly?

“Yeah!” Babycorn danced happily in place. “I bought almost all of them except for this one so they were almost sold out!” 

“Ah.”

Vertical Height held the small B’ig Nunh in her hands as she looked back and forth between it and her real-life bestie B’ig. “its kind of cute isn’t it?” Vertical poked the oversized head of the B’ig b’obble head and watched it wiggle around.  

“I’m cuter.” B’ig grumbled to himself. 

Vertical poked the B’ig bobblehead more. “they got the color of your briefs wrong.” 

“They WHAT?!” 

Vertical held the B’ig B’obblehead lower so he could get a good look at it. It was just as Vertical said, the color of his couerl briefs had been colored in wrong.

Instead of a metallic blue they were a purple-ish pink color. “I haven’t worn that color in years!” The people that made this knock-off must have missed last year's Hot B’ig Nunh calendar where he was clearly wearing his signature metallic blue couerl briefs.

Babycorn raised her hand. Specifically the one still holding onto the kite. “I can go back and tell them they got the color wrong if that’ll help!” Anything to help her good friend B’ig Nunh!

“NO ITS OKAY!”

B'ig Nunh knew in his love-filled heart that Babycorn would have definitely gone and done that if he didn't stop her in time. And that was absolutely terrifying.

[ancientechos]

@thegildenheart @windupiceheart

ive been going through some old sketchbooks

[hqmillioncorn]

When you are near, there's no need to fear!

Cherrypit watched as Babycorn sat on the edge of her bed, her head buried in her hands. Something had happened when they reported back to Minfilia that had caused them to run back to their room really fast. He didn't really get it, nor had he heard what Babycorn had said to her. Not that he was going to get Babycorn to admit to what she had said. She was taking this secret with her to the grave, because by pure luck alone Minfilia hadn't really heard either. "This is the fifth worst day of my life..." Babycorn mumbled.

Lalapril 4/21 Whisper with @windupiceheart 's b'iggy nunh, @umbral-heart 's hanabi and @windupnamazu 's sirius and butter

cherrypit runs around his house and has cringefail moment after cringefail moment. please help him.

“Uhhh, hold on…” B’ig moved his hand around the top shelf.

Given it was much higher up than he could see and Vertical was currently out somewhere mysterious meant B’ig couldn’t ask her to help. It was up to him to get the toy that Cherrypit had accidentally thrown on the highest shelf. 

Cherrypit watched from down below. Curious on whether B’ig was going to be able to reach his toy knife or not. He stood on his tippy-toes to see if he could catch a glimpse of it. Normally Cherrypit could easily float up to the top shelf or even stretch his arms and legs out to grab it but there was one very simple reason why he wasn’t doing that. 

He didn’t feel like it.

So instead he decided to go ask B’ig to do it! B’ig was always so nice and cool and really really funny! 

Cherrypit clapped to cheer B’ig on as he continued to struggle to reach the top shelf all while also trying to keep his balance on a flimsy wooden chair that Cherrypit had brought him when B’ig asked him to get a ladder. “Go Biggy! Go Biggy!” Cherrypit yelled out, waving two actual knives around like pom-poms. 

Suddenly, B’ig felt a sudden surge of energy.  Like he could do anything!

More specifically he could defeat those final few ilms in his way and grab the toy knife that Cherrypit was trusting him to reach. Neither of them knew it but Cherrypit was accidentally using his starsinger abilities to give B’ig Nunh an extra boost in power just by cheering him on. 

“Got it!” B’ig nunh victoriously exclaimed. While striking a pose that was equally as victorious and also very cool and interesting. 

But just as he did, he accidentally happened to lose his footing. 

“Wuh-oh.” There was an idea in B’ig’s head that maybe if he didn’t notice that he was about to fall maybe he would be able to stay afloat for a second or two.

Alas, there was no stopping the act of gravity as he very quickly began to plummet to the ground. 

Or at least, he would be. If a fast acting Cherrypit hadn’t caught him in his hands already. His oversized hands and arms that could grow up to five times their size (or more) with the help of extra muscles being folded on top of each other. Until they were big enough to hold B’ig in a tight grip.  “Yippee!!” Cherrypit cheered, carrying B’ig to the ground wasn’t all too hard. B'ig felt about as heavy as a piece of paper to him. “Yay! Yay!” Cherrypit continued to happily jump around with B’ig in his hands. 

As B’ig’s heart shaped moogle pom continued to wiggle back and forth because of Cherrypit, he managed to weakly ask him to please put him down.

Cherrypit nodded and did just that. Gently dropping B’ig onto the kitchen floor in a faceplant. A soft faceplant. Like landing on a bed of goose feathers if it was a wooden floor. 

B’ig dusted himself off and staggered onto his feet. While Cherrypit tried his best to bite his tail. With his back turned to him B’ig Nunh had no idea what he was doing. B’ig turned around to see Cherrypit looking at him with innocent eyes that told him that he was doing nothing wrong.

“Thanks for the catch Cherry.” He looked at the toy knife in his hand and bent down, handing it to the very trustworthy toddler, “Here you go! Be careful cutting up those vegetables!” Even if they were plastic this time.

Cherrypit smiled and grabbed the toy knife from B’ig. He took time to wildly swing it around like it was a sword instead. Just to see if it still worked, ya know.

B’ig tilted his head curiously, “Does it still work?” he asked playfully.

The process of testing to see if the toy knife still worked of course included biting on it. Cherrypit paused his testing and nodded. “Yeah! Thanks Papa!” 

Cherrypit froze. 

B’ig Nunh stared down at Cherrypit with a blank smile on his face. 

Neither dared make any sudden moves. 

B’ig slowly started to process what had just happened. “Pa…Pa…Pa…?” The room felt like it was spinning. “Pa…Pa…Pa…Pa…?????” His eyes were spinning, his hands were shaking. 

Cherrypit slowly looked up at B’ig, looking at him and then looking at the toy knife, over and over. Until finally he decided that a tactical retreat was the best option. Cherrypit took off running without so much as a bye-bye. He was mortified at what he had just said that he dared not say anything else. 

That was a lie, he did say one thing. 

“Gotta go!!” 

Something that Babycorn often said out loud when running away from situations that she wanted no part in either. 

Cherrypit ran as fast as he could up the stairs of the basement Leaving an eerily still B’ig Nunh behind.

At that point he could almost be mistaken for a stone statue instead of the interesting cat boy he very much was. “Pa…Pa…Pa..” He would remain there for hours until Vertical came downstairs to snap him out of it.

Meanwhile, in the present, Cherrypit had reached the top of the stairs and looked around to see if anyone was around to have heard him calling B’ig his papa. “Blahblahblah…” Cherrypit stuck his tongue out and shook his head. It’s not like he didn’t want B’ig as a papa, it was the idea that he let B’ig know that now.

The concept of being embarrassed about this was something that was probably a bit too early for a two-year-old to have but for better or for worse this was something that he had learned from no else but Babycorn Corn. 

As Cherrypit walked forward he thought about whether his sister had finished cleaning their room after Lunya had told her to. In his thinking he neglected to watch where he was going, running right into a certain someone else. 

“Wah!” Cherrypit exclaimed, he dropped his toy knife to the ground in surprise. 

The toy knife slid across the wooden floor until it came to a stop by the front door of the mansion. “Oh no!” Cherrypit heard someone cry out and then the sound of footsteps slowly followed, quickening in pace as they got farther away from him.

When Cherrypit sat up he saw his toy knife in the hand of someone he didn’t know. Then the more he looked the more he realized the person handing him his toy was Hanabi! She was sitting on the ground next to him, her side-ponytail was swaying in the wind. Tempting him to swat at it. “Did you drop this Cherry?” she asked with a smile. 

Cherrypit nodded, empty eyes sparkling. Hanabi always looked so cool to him. The cool wands she would always carry around…The way cool outfits she would wear…

The way her magic would blow people up! It was all really cool! 

Cherrypit grabbed the toy knife from her and stuck it in his mouth to bite it. Hanabi gently grabbed his arm and lowered it, removing the toy knife from his mouth. “No, no. Don’t stick things like that in your mouth!” She reminded him. 

In response Cherrypit had a great idea. He stuck the toy knife behind his ear, like he had seen a lot of people do with pencils. “Tada!” He held both of his arms out wide. “Thanks Mama!”

Cherrypit froze. Again. 

Hanabi looked at Cherrypit with a smile on her face. She looked behind her to see if Cherrypit was talking to someone else. She raised a shaky hand, pointing at herself. “Ma…Ma…Ma…Ma…? Hanabi would remain there for only a few minutes until the smell of a tasty bread baking snapped her out of it.

“GOTTA GO!” Cherrypit yelled louder than ever. 

He ran up the stairs up to the second floor of the mansion in a desperate attempt to be anywhere but where he had just been.

In his panic Cherrypit failed to notice he was on a direct course of crashing right into someone else. Before he could crash into that certain someone, he was picked up off the ground by the collar of his shirt. 

“Wah?” Cherrypit ran in midair for a few seconds before stopping and being put back onto the ground. When he looked up he saw Sirius staring at him. “Cherrypit be careful. You can’t go running around with your eyes closed.” He reminded him.

Lest they have a repeat of the  incident when Cherrypit ran into someone and knocked them right through a wall.

Poor Andres. 

Cherrypit twirled his fingers together. He really didn’t mean to run so fast and he didn’t want to push Sirius through a wall either! There was also maybe the chance that if he said he was really sorry about running around Sirius would give him one of those really yummy candies he had. 

Then before Cherrypit could stop himself-

“Sorry Papa!” 

At this point Cherrypit was just getting mad at himself. 

Sirius blinked, but ultimately just went with the flow. Cherrypit had called him that (and a lot of other people) that already. It was the same as usual. “Okay, just try to be careful next time.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a single piece of candy. 

The next time Sirius looked down at Cherrypit, he was gone. Seemingly having blipped his way out of existence again. “...Yeah. Okay.” Cherrypit also did that a lot too. Business as usual. Sirius only hoped he didn’t teleport himself onto the roof again. 

Lucky for him, Cherrypit was not on the roof. He had blipped himself back down to the first floor and in front of the door to his and Babycorn’s room. Surely his sister must have finished cleaning the room by now. Right?! All she ever did was sweep things under the bed anyway and eat whatever wrappers were on the floor. 

Just as Cherrypit was about to jump up and reach the doorknob, it turned on its own. “Who there!” Cherrypit hopped back in surprise as the door opened in front of him.

To his absolute horror, out from his sister’s room stepped out no one but Butter Veil. There were a few dust bunnies hanging out in his hair “If you need any more help just call me over!” He waved to someone inside the room, Cherrypit could only guess it was Babycorn. He knew Butter really liked her. 

Cherrypit froze the instant he noticed Butter looking down at him. “Hi Cherry!” he smiled, “Babycorns done cleaning so you can head in if you want!” As soon as Cherrypit noticed Butter move his hand into the pocket of his jacket he knew something was up. From his jacket Butter pulled out a lollipop, red in color. “Here! I know cherry is your favorite flavor Cherry!” 

By now Cherrypit had figured out that the problem was happening whenever he talked to people. So the solution was to just keep his mouth shut of course! So Cherrypit did the only thing he could think of and used both his hands to cover up his mouth. 

“Mpmmphmpphm!” Cherrypit very quietly said. Without saying anything else to Butter, Cherrypit ran past him and into his room, kicking the door closed.

Then he opened the door back up and using an extra hand from his arm he grabbed the lollipop from Butter and closed the door again. “Remember to take the wrapper off!” Butter yelled from the other side of the door.

Cherrypit put his ear to the door and listened to the footsteps of Butter walking away. He couldn’t take any chances. Once Cherrypit thought the coast was clear he took his hands off of his mouth and gave a tiny sigh of relief. 

“Pew…!” Cherrypit wiped at his forehead. Then turned around, the first thing that caught his eye was Babycorn. She was holding a bright pink blanket in her hands, his blanket!

He thought he lost it forever cause he couldn’t find it this morning! “Banwket! Bebe you find it!” Cherrypit rushed forward with his hands held out towards his sister.  

“Huh?” Babycorn looked surprised to see him but her surprise quickly turned to joy as she held the blanket out for him to see. “Yeah! I did! I had to clean the room a whole lot to find it but Butts helped me to and we found-”

Babycorn was cut off by Cherrypit jumping onto her and giving her a tight hug. He grabbed the blanket from her and nuzzled his face into it. He had really really missed it! “Thanks you Mama!” Cherrypit yelled out, as loudly as he could. 

“Cherryyy…! PLEASE don’t call me thaaaat…!” Babycorn said as quietly as she could. 

Instead of paying attention to her, Cherrypit jumped off of Babycorn and danced around with his blanket. “Thank you Bebe!” Thank Mama! Thank Mama!” He happily sang to himself. 

All while Babycorn stood by, completely frozen.

[hqmillioncorn]

True love will NOT bloom on the battlefield

“Bull’s eye!” Oleo pumped a fist into the air and let out another holler.  Another dot had pierced their dartboard and even though Oleo had far less points than Butter at the moment he was still glad to celebrate every little victory that he got. “Do you think Momoka would believe me if I told her I hit a bull’s eye?” Oleo asked his best friend Butter.  “I think she’d believe you!” That was just like Butter to say, ever the optimist.  “Ha! Knew it!” Oleo smiled and watched as Butter got ready to take his turn. “Yeah! Get em’ Butter!” Truthfully Oleo had no idea why there was a drawing of B’ig Nunh on Butter’s dartboard but if that’s how Butter wanted to play then who was he to say no to it.  Maybe it would explain how good Butter was doing this game as opposed to the rest but who could really know?

ffxiv write day 19: taken with @windupnamazu 's lunya and @windupiceheart 's vertical and (sorry) b'ig nunh

babycorn practices her reading in what perhaps is the worst way possible

“LUnyaaaaaaaaaaAAAAA!!!!”

The sound of someone knocking about a million times per second was enough to knock Lunya out of her weaving. “Babycorn.” There were only two people in the mansion that ever knocked on her door like that. One of them was Coco and the other was Babycorn. 

And since there was no more than ten seconds of uncontrollable wailing on the other side of the door–the more likely it was that it was Babycorn. 

Lunya stabbed her sewing needle in its cushion and hid it away just outside of Babycorn’s view. “Coming!” She yelled back, hoping that would get Babycorn to stop hitting her door so hard. It did not. 

“Lunya! Lunya! Lunya!” 

Babycorn was knocking and saying Lunya’s name in a rhythm now. It was almost impressive how long she was able to keep it up. 

The knocking finally came to a stop when Lunya grabbed her doorknob, swinging her door open not long after that. As Lunya had correctly guessed, it was Babycorn on the other side of the door all along. “Hi Lunya!” Babycorn innocently waved at her. Almost like she hadn’t been knocking on Lunya’s door like a maniac. “I have a question!!” 

Lunya watched as Babycorn wiggled her raised hand around all over the place. “Hi to you too Babycorn!” 

“Lunya I read a book!” Babycorn smiled. 

Of course Babycorn had forgotten about her earlier question. Lunya figured she would ask again when she remembered. As always. “Oh! Congrats!” Lunya knew Babycorn was slowly learning to read and had even started to practice her writing too. 

She was making progress according to the writing Lunya had seen on the walls earlier that week. “You’re not writing on the walls anymore right Babycorn?” 

“Nope!” Babycorn shook her head. “I’m writing on the ground now!”

“You what?” 

Before Lunya could ask Babycorn to elaborate more on what she had just admitted, Babycorn remembered what she had come to Lunya’s room to do in the first place. “Oh! That’s right Lunya! I wanted to ask you something super duper important!!” 

Things that were super duper important to Babycorn often ranged from either the most mundane thing ever to asking Lunya what she was supposed to do when the kitchen was on fire.

While Lunya tried to smell the air for any sign of smoke let Babycorn know she could ask whatever question she had burning in her mind. Which hopefully was the only thing burning. 

“Lunya! Am I dating B’ig Nunh?”

Suddenly Lunya started to wish there was smoke in the air instead. “...C-Can you repeat that?” By now there weren’t too many things Babycorn did that would surprise or shock Lunya, having known the girl for years now. But every now and then something would happen that reminded Lunya she could never keep her guard down.

Surely she hadn’t heard Babycorn right. Right?

“Am I dating B’ig Nunh?!” Once she asked the second time, Babycorn pulled up the book she had been holding under her arm the entire time. “This book said I went on a date with him!” The book she held up had a picture of B’ig Nunh on the cover along with the very concerning words of Go and date and with. Not in that order. 

The aforementioned catboy was mysteriously shirtless and posing on a beach looking straight at the person looking at the cover. There was a sticker on the cover that gave Lunya all the answers to the newly born confusion in her head.

“Y slash N…” Lunya stroked her chin. She didn’t want to look at the cover any longer than she had to and pushed the book down and out of sight, Babycorn didn’t seem to mind, she thought it was fun. 

“Babycorn what did I say about reading books with B’ig Nunh on the cover?”

“Not to…” Babycorn held the book up, trying to use it as a shield between her and Lunya. “But I didn’t read it! Someone else read it for me!” 

Lunya thought she also made sure to tell everyone she could to not read any books with B’ig Nunh on the cover to Babycorn. The mystery of how Babycorn could have read the books wouldn’t stay unsolved for long. 

A sprinkle of green cookie magic started to come down from the ceiling. Until it all came to a head when Airy landed on Babycorn’s head without a care in the world. “Hey.” Airy greeted Lunya in her own callous way. By acting as if Lunya wasn’t even there. 

Of course. “No Babycorn. You are not dating B’ig Nunh.” Lunya didn’t even want to imagine a world where that even had the slightest chance of happening. 

“Are you sure??” Babycorn sniffled. 

“Yes. Very sure!” 

“Really sure????”

Lunya knew where this was going. “I’m. Sure.” No matter how many times Lunya would tell her the opposite of what Babycorn was afraid of, she wouldn’t take her for her word. Even if Babycorn lived by the singular life rule that Lunya knew everything. No matter the topic. “Alright you know what-” 

Lunya grabbed Babycorn’s hand and spun her around towards the outside. She was sure that B’ig Nunh was home and if even she couldn’t convince Babycorn of the obvious, then surely hearing it from the mouth of B’ig Nunh himself would. 

If not then, Lunya would just have to kill him. 

“Woah where are we going Lunya?” Babycorn smiled, her worries of her dating B’ig Nunh had probably blown out of her head by now. 

“We’re going to go find B’ig and talk to him!” Lunya hummed. She of course was just a very normal lalafell and there was absolutely no danger involved in B’ig Nunh talking with Lunya Lanya about this. 

“And you-!” 

Lunya grabbed one of Airy’s wings and tugged on it. “OW?! Watch the wings!” Airy tried to shake herself out of Lunya’s grasp but her struggle was in vain. 

“You’re grounded.

“You’re not even my MOM?!?!”

Regardless, Airy flew all the way back to Babycorn’s room and spent the rest of the day there. Something about Lunya Lanya specifically scared her out of her wits. 

Outside of the mansion B’ig Nunh and Vertical Height were playing fetch with Cherrypit. Throwing cans at him to watch him catch them and eat them. It was enriching for the tiny little normal baby lalafell and also entertaining to watch. 

“okay cherry catch.” Vertical threw a can way up in the air and watched as Cherrypit caught it, biting down on it. “cool.” Cherrypit crunched the can with his very sharp teeth like it was a soft sugar cookie. 

“Again! Again!” Cherrypit cheered. This was way funner to do than whatever b’oring book his sister was reading. 

B’ig Nunh picked up another can from the pile and threw it in his hands. “Alright I’m gonna put all my strength into this one! Get ready!!” Cherrypit showed him how ready he was by running around in a circle very excitedly. 

“Go!” The can flew upwards! Just as B’ig Nunh had warned, it went really high up!

Just as Cherrypit got ready to leap after it, he heard something. It sounded like a door opening. He turned to see the front door of the mansion opening. Out from the inside of the house came Lunya followed by Babycorn, who was practically being dragged outside. “Bebe! Lulu!” Cherrypit cheered and ran over to hug them both.

Which was entirely possible with the way his arms worked. 

Cherrypit extended his arms out wide and grabbed both girls in a great big hug. “Hi Cherry!” Lunya managed to squeeze her arm out and give Cherrypit a little pat on his arm. “Are you having fun with B’ig and Verty?” 

“Yeah yeah!” 

“How much fun?” Babycorn rested her head on Cherrypit’s arm to ask. Cherrypit nodded and stretched out his arms wiiiiide open, dropping both Lunya and Babycorn to the ground. While one of them gently floated to the ground the other fell flat on her face and no I won’t say who did what,  it should be so obvious by now. 

“hey lunya hey babycorn.” Vertical raised her hand to greet her good friends, while still looking up at the sky. 

B’ig Nunh also got ready to say hi to his friends but happened to be stopped right in his tracks by Babycorn running up to him, crying her eyes out. 

If that wasn’t bad enough the next words out of her mouth were almost shocking enough to kill him.

“B’iggy are we dating?” 

Babycorn was sobbing, snot coming out of her nose.It was very dire. 

B’ig Nunh froze like a statue. “What? What? What? What????” His situation was also very dire. “NO???!!! NO WE’RE NOT???”  What kind of question was that?! Where did it come from!? Why was Babycorn asking him this?! 

B’ig resisted the urge to run away and hide because if he did that he couldn’t explain to Babycorn how wrong she was. Then that would lead to her to actually think what she said was true. Which it obviously wasn’t!!

All of this was hitting B’ig Nunh at once like a…like a…

“like a can from the sky?” 

“Well actually I was going to say like a ton of bric-”

Then a can from the sky bumped B’ig Nunh on his lovely moogle cap, right before tumbling to the ground, free for Cherrypit to bite and run off with. His current plan was to bury it in the backyard for later. 

Lunya let B’ig Nunh gather his bearings before talking to him. “See Babycorn? If B’ig Nunh says you’re not dating, then you’re not dating.” There was a very threatening aura around Lunya,  “End of story! 🤗” 

Babycorn looked down at her book. She didn’t understand a single word on the cover or on the back. All she knew was that her good friend B’iggy Nunh was on the cover and he would never lie to her. “But my book said…”

“If a book told you to walk off a bridge would you?” Lunya asked.

“...Well…”

“Babycorn Corn!” 

“No! I wouldn’t!” She was scared of heights! 

Vertical looked down at the book Babycorn was holding in her shivering hands. There was something about it that she recognized. “is that the book that told you you were dating b’ig nunh?” 

Babycorn nodded, tearfully. 

Now Vertical remembered. “i saw b’ig carrying a pile of those books. he said they were advanced copies made to sell later.” Vertical also remembered seeing B’ig Nunh reading one of them from the time she went to bed to when she woke up early the next morning.  

“They’re part of the B’ig Nunh self shipping collection…sniffle…” B’ig Nunh cried, sobbed, whined, all of the above. There were currently around ten books in the collection. They were best sellers for some reason. 

(the reason was that babycorn always bought half the stock. Something nobody but tataru knew yet) 

“Yeah. I figured.” Lunya huffed. “No more reading those kinds of books. Okay Babycorn?” Otherwise they would have to have this conversation more than once and once was already enough for Lunya. 

“Okay…” Babycorn sighed, “Do I also have to not read the other thing too?” 

Everyone was afraid to ask. Especially B’ig Nunh who was basically already dead. 

“what other thing…” Vertical finally decided to ask. 

Babycorn opened the B’ig Nunh takes you to the B’each book and pulled something out, it somehow looked larger than the book itself. “This!” She turned it around and showed her friends the Sexy B’ig Nunh Calendar for the current year she had. It was a costume edition, featuring B’ig Nunh in all sorts of different costumes for the different months!

“woah.” Vertical said while she also noticed B’ig Nunh dissolving into dust and blowing away in the wind. 

Without even taking a second to ask why she had that, Lunya grabbed both the book and the calendar from Babycorn. “NO! You cannot read either!!” She also made sure to grab Babycorn and carried her back to her room with Cherrypit following right behind her. 

“Aww…” Babycorn sadly sighed. 

“Don’t worry Verty! I’ll get the broom and you can sweep up B’ig when I get back!”

“thanks.” Vertical gave a thumbs-up.

[hqmillioncorn]

FFXIVWrite Day twenty-four (free day): Eggy

with @windupnamazu 's Butter and Pancake and Cinnamon and @windupiceheart 's Vertical Height and B'ig Nunh (sorry again)

Babycorn stopped walking when she noticed the seagull perched on a corner of the mansion. Then she noticed that Coco was standing on the front lawn, he was practicing different types of poses with his bow out. Was he trying to look cool or something? “Hey Coco!!” Babycorn called out to him.  “Eeep!” Coco jumped in place, “W-What?!!?” Babycorn pointed up at the bird as it stared back down at Coco. “Your son is here. You should say hi!” The seagull let out a CAW.  “That’s not my son!” Coco couldn’t believe he had to say this every time.  “Didn’t you lay his egg?” “NO! No I didn’t!!!” 

It was an early morning like any other. 

That morning Babycorn had asked Lunya for some help on a dress she was making and then she just never left, as she often did when she hung around her friends lately. Always finding some excuse to stick around or just sitting there until she had to leave and this time was no different. 

Babycorn had finished the work on her dress and was now lying on the floor with Cherrypit next to her. They were both very busy at work, collaborating on a drawing with Babycorn drawing most of it and Cherrypit was coloring what he wanted to with his crayons. 

Meanwhile Lunya was alternating between tidying around her room and making sure that neither Babycorn or Cherrypit bit down on any crayons on her watch. 

So far she had narrowly stopped Babycorn from biting down on a yellow crayon and a blue crayon. Her reasoning had been something along the lines of, ‘But so many tasty things are the same color!’ and Cherrypit nodded his head alongside his sister, a crayon in his mouth. 

Lunya really wondered how the siblings had survived up to when they all met. 

“What color should this be Cherry?” Babycorn pointed at the person she had just finished drawing in. It was pretty hard to tell to anyone that wasn’t her but the scene she was drawing was a dear memory to her.

The day that she learned she was gonna be a big sister. 

The person that Babycorn was pointing at was their papa. Cherrypit still recognized him. “Bu! Bu!” He held up a blue crayon and waved it around before he got to work on coloring. 

Babycorn watched her brother continued to color, then turned her attention to what Lunya was doing. Lunya was sitting on a chair, reading a book with a really long title that Babycorn couldn’t really understand. There were so many things that Lunya could be reading about. After all Lunya knew a lot about a lot of things, at least, that’s what Babycorn thought. 

If there was anything Babycorn ever wanted to know Lunya was one of the first people she ran to for an answer. It had unknowingly been that way for a while.

Babycorn looked back to see that Cherrypit had finished coloring with his blue crayon. “Bu!” He stuck the crayon in his mouth and chewed on it a little.

Right on cue Lunya spoke up, “Cherry take that out of your mouth.” Her eyes never moved from looking at the book she was reading. 

Cherrypit giggled a little and spit the crayon out. “Amama!” he babbled, before falling over backwards into a pillow and lying there for a little bit then sitting back up. He picked up another crayon and held it towards Babycorn. “Daw? Draw!” 

Babycorn grabbed the crayon from her brother and smiled, “You got it!” She laid down on her belly and began to draw once again. As she began to draw her mama, a question popped into Babycorn’s head.  “Hmmm…” Babycorn hummed to herself. She looked to look at Lunya, wondering something to herself. 

“Hmmm?” Cherrypit tilted his head and repeated after his sister. 

“Hey Lunya? Can I ask you a question?” Babycorn asked.

Lunya turned a page in her book. “Is it if you can eat one of the crayons?”  

Babycorn was silent for a suspicious amount of time. “N-No..” Truthfully that had been one of her questions but not the questions she wanted to ask.

“Then what did you want to ask me?”

“Where do babies come from?” 

“HurK?!” 

Lunya almost let the book she was holding drop from her hands. “Where do babies come from? I-Is that it?” She asked to make sure she had heard right. Babycorn nodded over and over at her and Lunya found herself looking around the room in a tizzy.

The easiest answer would be to tell Babycorn the truth but this was the same Babycorn Corn who was known to be a blabbermouth among everyone living in the mansion. There was no doubt in Lunya’s head that as soon as Babycorn learned about ‘this’ she would go and tell literally everyone she ran into.

Lunya looked around the room for anything that would help get her out of this situation. Or to give her a clue on how to answer Babycorn’s question. To her right and spotted her guestbook. That didn’t help much, only reminded her of the time Babycorn stole a burning log from her fireplace and set Himbo’s kitchen on fire.

Eventually Lunya’s eyes landed on a potted plant. The flowers were adorned in such a way that it reminded her of Coco’s poofy and fluffy hair.

“From eggs.” Lunya answered, “They come from eggs.”

“Woah! Really?!” Babycorn could hardly believe it.

“Really.” Lunya turned to another page of her book she was still reading. Parenting your friends for Dummies, a book that had fallen on her head like it was destiny or something. Weirdly enough this had happened just a few weeks before today.

Babycorn watched as Cherrypit went off in his coloring again. This time he was coloring their mama with a purple crayon. “Eggs…Babies come from eggs…” Of course they came from eggs!

Where else would they come from?!

After a bit of being in Lunya’s room Babycorn decided that she was hungry, and rather than risk getting scolded by Lunya for eating more crayons, she decided to go and see if there were any tasty snacks in the kitchen. 

Both siblings said their good-bye’s to Lunya, grabbed their drawing and headed out the door. 

Just as they were going to head down to the kitchen, Babycorn turned her head and noticed that Butter and Pancake were sitting on the staircase heading to the upper floor. They were talking with each other. Cinnamon was there flying over their heads, making those funny ringing noises again. 

“Hi Butts! Hi Pancake! Hi Cinnamon!” Babycorn ran over to and waved at them. Cherrypit was right behind her. They looked just as happy to see her as she was to see them. Babycorn took a seat on the stairs next to Butter. A fact that did not escape the ever observant Pancake and Cinnamon. 

“Ehehehe…” They laughed to themselves. And also Cherrypit, but he was just laughing along because it was fun. 

“What are you guys doing?” Babycorn asked. Something that’s usually asked before you decide to sit down and insert yourself into a conversation. Not that any of them minded though. 

Cinnamon flew over and gestured to the dirty plates that all of them had stacked up while Pancake explained for her tongue-tied brother. “We were eating a pudding Butter made! It was reallyyyyyyyy tasty!!” The pudding was made out of chocolate and vanilla. It was something that Pancake had specifically asked for a couple of days ago and Butter had promised he would make. “We saved some if you want to try some!” 

“Really?!” Babycorn’s eyes were practically sparkling. “I would love to!!!” 

“You gotta promise you’ll leave some for Linnet! I promised her some too!” Pancake urged her.

“Promise!” 

That’s when what Lunya feared would happen, happened. 

“Oh!” Babycorn’s pom stood straight up, “Today Lunya told me where babies come from!” She laughed, kicking her legs in excitement, “Do you want to hear?! I can tell you!” She really had no idea if any of them actually knew where babies came from, it wasn’t something she considered. Babycorn was just always happy to share things she learned. 

Butter and Pancake looked at each other with a knowing look. If Lunya had been the one to tell Babycorn where babies come from they had a feeling what Babycorn would say. She had told them the same thing some time ago. 

It wasn’t until Sirius sat both of them down and sternly explained the entire thing to them. He had even given them a quiz to do at the end of the lesson, that’s just how serious he had been about the whole thing. 

Cinnamon laughed haughtily, “Well of course I know! They’re baked in ovens! Duh!” 

Just like Babycorn, Cinnamon had not been present for Sirius’ lesson. 

“They come from eggs!!” Babycorn raised her arms in the air, “Babies really came from eggs this whole time!!” She felt sooooo smart and normal. 

Butter didn’t know where to start. “A-Actually Babycorn that’s not…” He paused. At that moment he realized he didn’t really want to be the one to explain this to her. He started to wonder if Sirius was busy today. Considering how he was, he probably was out there doing something important. 

“Babies don’t come from eggs!” Pancake protested. Just like Butter however, she didn’t elaborate further. 

“Yeah! They come from the oven!” Cinnamon helpfully added.

Butter decided it wasn’t worth it to argue with Cinnamon, since Babycorn couldn’t hear her anyway and there was no real harm in Cherrypit probably couldn’t understand what Cinnamon was saying anyway. He looked like he was too busy looking at the drawing in his hands anyway. 

Just then B’ig Nunh wandered into the scene, carrying a large crate full of eggs in his arms. 

Babycorn could hardly believe her eyes. 

Babycorn sprung to her feet and screamed, “Ohmigosh B’ig?! Did you have all those babies?! How many babies are you gonna have?!” 

B’ig stopped in his tracks. “Ex…Excuse me?” What had Babycorn just asked him? 

Before either Butter or Pancake could stop her, Babycorn ran down the stairs and towards B’ig. “You had all these eggs, right? They’re all gonna hatch into babies! Lunya told me that’s where they come from!!” Babycorn clapped for her good friend B’ig Nunh and Cherrypit also clapped besides her, “Congrats on being a mama now B’ig!!” 

“HUH? HUH? HUH? HUH? HUH?” B’ig had NO idea what Babycorn was talking about but he didn’t like a single word that Babycorn was telling him. 

“oh damn. really? congrats.” 

“YOU WERE THERE WHEN I BOUGHT THESE??!?!!” For a matter of fact, when had Vertical gotten here?! B’ig took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down in order to calmly explain to Babycorn that he had NOT laid any eggs, let alone a crate full of them and he was also NOT going to have like twenty babies. 

“B-”

“So when are they going to be born?” Babycorn jumped up and hung off the crate to get a better look at the crate. B’ig nearly lost his balance and fell, if it wasn’t for Vertical grabbing him by his shirt collar the foyer would have been one-hundred percent more egg covered. “Do you have names for them yet? Are you gonna put them in a little warm box? Are you gonna give them a little hat to wear?” The questions just kept on coming. 

“you should have told me. i would have gotten you a present.” 

“I’M NOT??? HAVING BABIES???” B’ig was desperate. Vertical had been there when he bought these eggs!!! What in the world was she talking about?! He was going to cry. He was really going to start crying. 

At this point Butter and Pancake knew that they had to step in. Butter walked up to Babycorn and gently moved her away from the crate and back onto the ground. “You okay?” He asked, hoping that he hadn’t hurt her somehow. 

Babycorn was a little confused, “I’m fine! See?” She wiggled her hands around and stomped her feet. 

B’ig Nunh was less than okay. “WHYY WOULD YOU THINK I’M HAVING BABIIIES?!” He wanted to set the record straight. “I’M NOT! I DIDN’T LAY THESE EGGS! I SWEAR!” 

Babycorn’s eyes lit up again. She had another chance to tell someone what Lunya had told her! It never even crossed her mind that B’ig would already know this considering he had ‘laid’ a bunch of eggs already. “Lunya told me where babies come from!” She put her hands on her hips and stood proudly. “She said they come from eggs!”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” B’ig was distraught. How could this happen to him? What had he ever done wrong to deserve this? “BABIES DON’T COME FROM EGGS!!” He cried. Some babies did but not the babies Babycorn was thinking of.

“Huhu? Of course they do.” Lunya couldn’t be wrong about this.

Butter nervously (more than usual) stood next to her and coughed, “Actually…Um, B’ig is right. Babies don’t come from eggs…” 

Babycorn looked almost a little disappointed. She knew Butter wouldn't lie to her about anything. He must be telling the truth. “Are you sure…?” She asked. Because, then again, Lunya would never lie either. Would she? Then who was telling the truth? 

“Pretty sure…” Pancake told her. “If it makes you feel better we thought babies came from eggs too! Cause Lunya told us!” In hindsight it was a pretty silly thought that they had believed in that at the time but Pancake could understand how someone could believe in it right away. 

“It made sense to me.” Babycorn was confused, “Me and Cherry were born from eggs.” 

“Oh, really?” 

“HUh??”

“huh.” 

“HUH?!” B’ig nearly dropped the crate full of eggs on the ground.

“What the FUCK?!”

There were a couple of distant steps, quickly getting louder and louder. Until Lunya ran into the room herself. “HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH?!” 

Babycorn smiled, “Yeah! Did I never mention it?” When everyone shook her head at her, she tried to remember if she had ever actually said anything about it. It seemed like the answer was a resounding No. Babycorn gestured over to Cherrypit and he handed over the drawing that they had been working on in Lunya’s room.

“Look see?” Babycorn turned the drawing towards everyone for them to look at. It was just as it was before, a picture of Babycorn’s memory of when she found out she was going to be a big sister. There was her, her papa, her mama and the egg she was holding in her hands. 

Babycorn pointed at the egg her mama was holding. “That’s Cherry! When he wasn’t born yet!” He had been a pretty big egg, or at least big when compared to Babycorn’s size at the time. “My mama also told me that I had looked just like him when I was small too! Cept’ my egg was more smaller.” 

Pretty much everyone there was shocked at how nonchalantly Babycorn was describing all of this. Almost everyone. 

“Ooooh! That’s cool!” Butter looked at the drawing and then to Babycorn, “Was it hard to hatch out of an egg?”

“I don’t remember!” Babycorn grinned. 

Lunya stared right at her son that was three years younger than her. “You two couldn’t be a more perfect match if you tried…” She whispered under her breath. Truly it would be a struggle to find someone that would take all of Babycorn’s Babycorn-isms as carefree as Butter did. 

Lunya couldn't wait to tell Sirius about this.

[staticcolour]

Hi content might be 18+

Art tag: #staticcolour Art only blog: @staticartchives FFXIV blog: @windupiceheart Commission carrd: https://staticcomms.carrd.co/ Other links: https://statty.carrd.co/

[hqmillioncorn]

FFXIVWrite Day eight: Shed

with @windupiceheart vertical @windupnamazu Butter and Sirius and @umbral-heart Hanabi

Cherrypit walked his way over to the strange shed in his home's backyard. Babycorn had spent months trying to build a treehouse for him to play in and had messed up so bad she built a shed instead. But Cherrypit didn't really mind. It was still fun. Even funner when he could use it as his own little room. The inside almost resembled a hall of mirrors. Crystals lined the walls. It was pretty weird but Cherrypit didn't care. All he was here to do was to throw these used bandages away.

For as long as anyone (and Babycorn) could remember, Cherrypit’s arms have always been covered. By something, anything. Be it a long popoto sack, unfashionably long sleeves, regular sized sleeves, or even a whole different body. 

It wasn’t really something anyone ever worried about. There were certainly many more things to worry about Cherrypit besides the lack of ever seeing his arms. Unless you were in the group of people that thought of Cherrypit as nothing more than a regular baby, like so many people that knew him did, including his beloved sister. 

It wasn’t till after the unfortunate events at the battle of Ghimlyt Dark did anyone realize that Babycorn hadn’t entirely told everyone everything about Cherrypit. 

(there were actually a lot more secrets she was hiding but for her sake let's pretend she’s been truthful)

Cherrypit had been among those taken to Ishgard after the battle. His injuries weren’t as severe as the rest of the Warriors of Light, which was a relief. At the most he was just a little shaken up about the whole thing, refusing to leave his sister’s side even as she received treatment. He calmed down significantly when Aymeric had shown up with a brand new toy just for him, a stuffed blue elephant toy. 

When it came time for Cherrypit’s examination, things couldn’t have gone worse. 

The first healer screamed when they noticed that Cherrypit didn’t have a heartbeat. Then when the distant voice of Hanabi explained that the lack of a heartbeat was normal, they ended up fainting and had to be carried out. 

Aymeric worriedly watched as Cherrypit silently sat on the bed, kicking his legs back and forth while playing with the stuffed elephant's trunk. 

He’s not normally this quiet. Aymeric recalled all the times he had met with the siblings. Most of the time Babycorn had to physically restrain him from bouncing off the walls, he was that excited. Even more so when they hadn’t seen each other for a while. Aymeric could understand.

Truly one never knew true terror until Cherrypit decided he liked you enough to leap onto your face to hug you like he had done to both Aymeric and Estinien one day. 

While the healers were busy attending to other matters, Aymeric decided he would try and see if he could find out what could be bothering Cherrypit. Besides the obvious worry for his sister and his friends and the very true reality that he had been in the middle of a battlefield amidst destruction and carnage. 

Aymeric paused, maybe there wasn’t that much to ask. 

Before anything, something caught Aymeric’s attention. There were bandages wrapped all over Cherrypit’s arms and legs. That was strange, from what he had heard Cherrypit had hardly been injured. All he had needed was a small bandage on his face and a huge lollipop to get him to stop crying. 

Aymeric looked around and happened to spot a nurse walking by. He signaled them down, “Do you recall who placed these?” he asked, pointing to the bandages on Cherrypit. The nurse gave Aymeric a confused look and shrugged, a hint of panic to their face. 

Could these have been placed back at Ghimlyt Dark? Aymeric worried that if that were the case, they might already be due to be replaced with new bandages. Or else…

He made his way out into the hallway and yelled up and down the hall. “Excuse me! Is there anyone who could change Cherrypit’s bandages?” Aymeric looked back at Cherrypit, he was still looking down at the floor, kicking his feet in place. “I’m afraid they may be too tight or in need of a change!” 

“Coming Lord Aymeric!!” Many people shouted back from down the hall. Everyone knew Lord Aymeric meant business when it came to the safety and health of the Warriors of Light. Doubtless if he had the time and means he probably would have healed many of their injuries himself. 

One brave soul decided to take it upon herself to change Cherrypit’s bandages. Coming up behind her were a group of her colleagues who had come to provide moral support and also to watch because everyone else was already taken care of at the moment. 

Cherrypit offered no resistance, he knew these people were only here to help his sister and his family so it only made sense to let them help him too. If they wanted to change his bandages then they could. Even if it made him a little scared that Bebe wasn’t doing it.

As the nurse began to unwrap the first layer of bandages on Cherrypit’s arm off there was a strange foreboding feeling in the air. 

Before anyone could do anything, Cherrypit’s arm bandages completely fell off. 

Almost everyone in the room let out a loud gasp. 

There were a lot of things that everyone expected to be under those bandages. Things like cuts and bruises came to mind, it would be worrying to see but normal under these circumstances. Those bandages had a reason to be there, after all.

Never in a million years would anyone in that room (except for Cherrypit hi) have guessed that under those bandages would be a large eye looking back at them, a small mouth, a collection of scales, and a series of small dark marks with strange twig looking things coming out of them.

“What is this…?” Aymeric knew Cherrypit was much much different than other children his age but Babycorn had never mentioned any of this. 

Cherrypit watched as one by one, more people ran out of the room and away from him. 

He could recognize those expressions. They were scared about something. They all kept looking at him, so they were probably scared of him. 

But that didn’t make any sense! He didn’t do anything scary! 

Cherrypit looked around in a panic, wondering where his sister was. When he was doing this he happened to catch sight of Aymeric looking at him.

He looked just as scared as the rest. 

Being looked at that way by one of his friends was enough to send Cherrypit crying all the way to Babycorn’s room. 

“Cherrypit please wait!” Aymeric tried to stop Cherrypit but it was no use. 

Thankfully Cherrypit was a loud crier so it was no problem to follow where he had run off to and even then, Babycorn’s room would have been Aymeric’s first guess anyway. 

At the sound of Cherrypit crying, Sirius and Butter immediately came running out from Lunya’s room. Sirius took an extra second and a few steps back to give Lunya a stern reminder to stay put and Lunya didn’t have the energy to argue with him. 

“What’s going on?! Is Cherrypit-?!” Butter yelled out, stepping into the room. He let out a small gasp when he noticed that this was Babycorn’s room. She was still asleep. So he did the only logical thing he could think of and stepped back outside.

“What’s going on? Is Cherrypit okay?” Butter whispered this time. Sirius came in walking behind him and looked upon the scene with Butter.

Several of the healers (and Aymeric) they had seen around the building were all gathered around Babycorn’s bed. Most of them either had a toy or a piece of candy in their hand. All of them were obviously trying to coax Cherrypit from under the bed. 

“What are you all doing?” Butter asked in a slightly louder voice. 

Aymeric put down his rattle to explain. “Something happened while trying to replace Cherrypit’s bandages. I never expected something like this to happen.” He would gladly apologize to Cherrypit once he had calmed down (and Babycorn once she woke up) but first this situation had to be resolved. 

Butter and Sirius were both confused. That was the first they heard of Cherrypit having any type of bandages. 

“As it turns out Cherrypit may be hiding more secrets than Babycorn let on.” Aymeric continued to explain, “Whatever the case-We just need to get him out from under the bed and try and calm him down.” Or else he might wake up everyone in Ishgard at this rate. 

It was kind of a miracle that Babycorn was still knocked out.

“Fine job you’re doing there.” Sirius said. He could have sworn that Cherrypit’s crying was only getting louder.

“whats going on here?” 

A tall shadow cast itself over Butter and Sirius. Butter looked up and found himself face to face with both Vertical and Hanabi staring right past him and into Babycorn’s room.

“What are you two doing here?” Butter asked. 

“Shouldn’t both of you be resting?” Sirius sternly asked, a little worried that Lunya herself would be coming up running next. 

Vertical held up some dango. “hanabi was giving me a snack. i asked her about it.” She had gotten lost on her way to the kitchen. Vertical also had an extra in her other hand, most likely for B’ig whenever he was well enough to eat it. 

Hanabi nodded. “I remembered I bought a lot of them back in Kugane! And I needed a snack to help cheer me up so I just started eating some!” Though Hanabi was still making sure to keep enough to share with everyone else. 

By now Cherrypit’s crying had devolved to sniffling to himself, which is how that past conversation was even allowed to happen. Otherwise no one would be able to hear anything.

“Hmm…” Sirius took note that Hanabi was holding a whole bunch of dango in her hand. He called out to her and asked her if he could have just one. 

“Of course!” Hanabi happily handed one to him. 

“Thanks.” Sirius then made his way over to where Aymeric was and held up the dango to him, “Here just use this.”

“Use this?” Aymeric held the dango up and inspected it. 

“And if that doesn’t work we can use the cookies I bought!” Butter happily tried to whisper. The cookies he had bought specifically for no one in particular. 

Aymeric knelt down closer to the bed and did the only thing he could think to do. He moved the dango around under the bed much like one would move a cat toy around. 

Cherrypit’s sniffling instantly stopped, “Dango! Dango!” his little hands appeared from the darkness and grabbed onto the dango itself, exactly how his sister held it. Aymeric stood up and brought Cherrypit into the air, still hanging off of it. He laughed to himself and kicked his feet rapidly in the air. 

Now that he was out from under the bed, everyone could finally see what had scared everyone so bad. 

“Oh! Cherry you got an eye on your arm! Can you see out of it?”

“Yeah, that tracks.”

“dang.”

“If you want any more dango Cherry I have more!” 

Cherrypit let out a happy little babble of words as he bit down and began to eat his snack. “Mmhmmphh! Baba! YumYum!! Yummy!!” His vocabulary was finally expanding. Everyone was so proud. 

The mouth on his arm was drooling a bit.

[hqmillioncorn]

FFXIVWrite Day seventeen: Sneaking

with @windupiceheart 's Vertical Height and B'ig Nunh (sorry)

Vertical, B’ig and Babycorn climbed the steps back up to the Eulmore aetheryte plaza. She was getting really sick of climbing these stairs.  On the bright side B’ig Nunh was back and Vertical wasn’t worried anymore! The bad news was that Vertical had been the one to run out of the Beehive and decide where they were going. Which resulted in them getting lost. Again. Thankfully B’ig said he knew pretty much the right way to go from his time here. Which was good! She just wished it didn’t involve so many stairs. “Hmmm…” Babycorn never did get that pot of honey.

Babycorn had nothing to worry about it turns out!

The city of Eulmore was great! What had she even been worried about?! The people were kinda rude, sure, but the food they had was really good! It sorta had this really sweet taste to it? Whatever it was, Babycorn had never tasted anything like it before. 

She loved eating meol! So much that she had grabbed as much of it as she could carry and had stuffed it into her bag. “You sure you don’t want some?” Babycorn picked up another piece of meol and waved it around at Vertical, who was walking besides her. “They’re really tasty!!” 

Vertical looked down and once again shook her head. “no thanks.” This had been the fifth time in the last minute that Babycorn had asked if she wanted some suspicious bread.

“Aww! Why not? It’s really tastyyyyy!”

This was also the fifth time in the last minute that Babycorn had told her how tasty it was.

“i’m not really that hungry.” 

Vertical had eaten lunch with the others earlier. It was a complementary picnic that included fruit salad, prepared by the Crystal Exarch himself. He had left a written note saying so. 

Eating that fruit salad made her miss B’ig Nunh even more than usual. 

“If you say soooo!” Babycorn would probably ask Vertical if she wanted some in just a few more seconds. 

“try not to eat too many.”

“Hmmph?” Babycorn tried to ask what Vertical meant but her mouth was full. 

“you might get a tummy ache.” Vertical warned. There was also something to be said from accepting food from such obviously rich white people. Free food that might as well have come with a giant WARNING sign on top of it. 

For the first time since arriving at Gatetown, Babycorn paused her munching. 

Of all the worst feelings in the world a tummy ache was one of the worst. She’s had a lot of experience with them, none of them good obviously. The small Lunya in her head reminded her what had happened when she licked those poison frogs too. Though this was totally different. 

Those memories of tummy aches past was enough for Babycorn to put the meol she was currently in the middle of eating, back in her bag. 

“Ummm…” Babycorn tried to think of anything that would distract her from wanting to eat more meol, “Where did Alphinaud tell us to investigate again?” 

“somewhere called the beehive i think.” Vertical looked down at her hand where Babycorn had written the name of the place they were tasked to go to. Except Babycorn had no idea how to write words so she just drew a funny picture of a bee on Vertical’s hand. Which Vertical just let her do because she was cool like that. 

Babycorn froze mid-step. “Y-You don’t think there’s gonna be actual bees in there? D-D-Do you???” There were too many bad experiences Babycorn had with bess. Most of them were her fault for trying to get some honey from their hives but that didn’t matter right now. 

“probably not.” Vertical answered. How would she know? She’d never been here. She needed to be honest. “if there are bees i’ll protect you.”

“Are you gonna punch em’?!” 

“yeah.” 

“You’re so cool Vertical!!” 

“thank you.” Vertical smiled and began to wonder if kicking bees would be better than punching them.

There wasn’t too much time to think about it because they had finally reached the doors to the Beehive. There wasn’t a sign on there or anything but the map that they had gotten when they entered Eulmore as servants told them that this was the place. 

Alphinaud had circled the Beehive in red with twenty also red arrows pointing to it to make sure that neither Babycorn or Vertical could miss it.

Somehow they had both missed it and ended up in the gaol earlier but it's okay because they made it here eventually and no one had to know they had gotten lost getting to it. 

“Yay!! We made it!” Babycorn cheered and accidently threw the map into the air. The wind picked it up and blew it all the way off of Eulmore. Vertical and Babycorn watched as the map flew away in the wind and fluttered all the way down to the ocean.

“...We don’t need that anymore right?” 

“p-probably not.”

Babycorn and Vertical let out a pair of synchronized shocked gasps when a seagull snatched the map from the air. Carrying off any hopes that the wind would turn and bring the map back to them.

“any chance you’ve been leaving bread crumbs as we’ve been walking?”

“I thought about it but I’m too used to Cherry eating them behind me…” Babycorn laughed nervously and tapped her fingers together.

“Hmm.” There went that plan. “we’ll be fine.”

The pair of opulent doors leading to the Beehive opened in front of them, letting them walk right in. With nothing else better to do, Vertical and Babycorn walked in. 

“Woooooow!” Babycorn looked all around with wonder sparkling in her eyes. This place looked like something out of a fairy tale!  All the furniture and everything looked so fancy! Even the people sitting around looked all fancy too!  

It was a little dark though but Babycorn guessed that’s what the fancy lights were for. 

“wowie.” Vertical said. 

“This place looks fun Vertical!” 

Vertical looked over to the stage and noticed the many half-dressed people dancing to the music. “i guess.” Seeing so many people partly dressed reminded her of her bestie B’ig Nunh and how he wasn’t here. He had traveled here with her but in the middle of the magical transit here they had both gotten separated. 

Good news, B’ig Nunh was on the First. Bad news, she had no idea where.

“Vertical! Vertical! Check it out!” Babycorn tugged on her coat and led her towards the bar. “They’re serving food I think! Do you think they sell pots of honey?!” 

“you could go ask.” 

“Good idea!” Babycorn skipped away to go ask and Vertical watched as she left. Which made her miss the shirtless cat boy wildly flailing at her to try and get her attention. 

Lucky for him, Vertical’s B’ig Nunh senses had not been dulled during their separation. 

Sensing something was amiss, Vertical turned around just in time to see a shirtless B’ig crying out to her. Literally he was crying while also doing his best to dance, though it wasn’t his forte. 

“b’ig!” Vertical yelled out in lowercase. 

“VERTICAAAAAAL!!!!!” B’ig yelled out in uppercase. Those that had just been watching the show that had no idea they were witnessing an emotional reunion were just really confused. 

At that very moment a disappointed Babycorn had come back from the bar in tears. “Verticaaaaal they told me to quit joking around and come back when I order something for reaaaal!” This left Babycorn so heartbroken she had forgotten all about the dangers of stomach pain and decided to ease her sorrows by eating some more meol. 

Babycorn had just taken out another meol to eat when Vertical scooped her up like a football. She let out a surprised squeak but Babycorn was just so used to being carried around by now she didn’t even question it.

What she did question was why Vertical covered her eyes as she started to run towards the stage. Which they just let her do for some reason. 

“Why are you covering my eyes?” Babycorn asked between bites.

“don’t worry about it”

Sad to say she was a little worried about it. “Are we gonna get on stage and dance too?!” 

“no. sorry.”

“Okay that’s good.” Babycorn would have rather jumped off of Eulmore than dance on that stage. Her stage fright would have not let her do anything but freeze up like a popsicle if someone put her on that stage. 

Vertical closed in on the stage and B’ig discreetly danced his way closer to her until they were finally pretty much face to face with each other. “I missed youuuu!” B’ig was still crying and dancing in an effort to not raise any suspicions.

“me too!” Underneath her eyepatch Vertical was tearing up too. “okayy buddy let’s go home.” There was going to be a lot of catching up for Vertical to do. How much did B’ig really know about their current predicament? Surely the Crystal Exarch wouldn’t mind giving another long explanation again. 

“Vertical they took my clothes. :(“ 

“then let’s go get them back.” 

Babycorn managed to sneak a peek at who Vertical was talking to. While she recognized the voice she had no idea why Vertical was talking to this weird half-naked cat boy she had never met once in her entire life.  

For the sake of simplicity, B’ig’s clothes were currently being kept backstage in the Beehive. Sneaking backstage proved to be as easy as just walking into the Beehive itself. Vertical and B’ig tried to look as unsuspicious as they could while walking through the 

What wasn’t easy was for Vertical to keep her hands over Babycorn’s eyes. Babycorn didn’t seem to mind or suspect there was anything wrong with being continued to be carried and kept in the dark (literally) she was used to this by now.

“Who are you talking to anyway Vertical?”

“b’ig nunh.” 

Babycorn was confused. That guy she saw didn’t look anything like B’ig Nunh! Where was his funny hat and his cool vest? His pants were all wrong too! For starters he was actually wearing a pair. Babycorn let Vertical know all the inconsistencies. 

She felt like a real detective!

Meanwhile B’ig was a little hurt that one of his friends didn’t recognize him. It broke his little heart.

“its because they took his clothes.”

“Ew! So he’s naked right now?!” Babycorn put one of her hands over Vertical’s. She really didn’t wanna see something like that!

“I’m not naked!” B’ig protested. “Only my shirt is gone!” 

“Eww!!!!!!!” Babycorn munched louder. 

B’ig noticed Babycorn chowing down on some more meol. “Don’t tell me you’re actually eating that stuff?” He had been offered meol on his very first day here but he had politely refused it, sensing that there was something off with it. 

“Yeah!” Babycorn took another bite of her meol. “It’s tasty!!”

It was well known among Babycorn’s friends that if Babycorn found something tasty there was a 50/50 chance that it was actually tasty, the other half meant that it probably tasted something like mud or something. 

“if you didn’t eat meol what did you eat?” Vertical asked. She hoped that he hadn’t gone this long without eating anything. She hadn’t saved anything for him to eat!

B’ig Nunh sighed, for a long time. “I still had some raw spaghetti that Babycorn gave me so I just cooked some of that and tried to make it last as long as I could. I also had to eat all the sandwiches I was holding on for you!! I’m sorry Vertical!!!” Those sandwiches had been the first to go.

Vertical gave B’ig a sympathetic pat on the head. “it’s ok.” There would be other sandwiches but just one B’ig Nunh. 

“Stop right there!” 

Vertical and B’ig (and also Babycorn) froze in place. Right in front of them was a eulmore guard, how they had failed to notice him was a question that would mostly likely never be answered.

“Who are your patrons?” 

“Celric!” B’ig answered without missing a beat. He nervously looked at Vertical to see what she would answer. 

“same.” Hopefully this guard wouldn’t look too deep to find out that she was lying.

Babycorn continued eating meol without a care in the world. “Lord Vauthry” She answered. 

The guard looked almost scared to hear Babycorn say that. “I see. Carry on then!” Then just as quickly as he showed up. He had left again into the vague backdrop of this scene. All three of them held their breath as he walked away, only breathing easy once he was out of sight.

“That was close…” B’ig wiped some non-existent sweat off his brow.

“yeah……..” Vertical set Babycorn down on the ground but made sure she was still covering her eyes. “by the way where did you even get that name from? doesn’t sound familiar.”

“I don’t know!” Babycorn shrugged, “Just popped into my head!”

As it turned out B’ig’s clothes were being conveniently stored in a supply closet way in the back of the backstage way past the dressing rooms. 

Vertical and Babycorn stood guard of the closet while B’ig changed inside. 

“Um Vertical?” 

“yeah? what’s up?”

“How are we going to break out of this place?” Surely they couldn’t just walk out of here with one of their dancers? Could they?

“i’m going to pick both of you up and run really fast.” 

“Ooooh! Ok! Sounds fun!” 

What could go wrong?