woke up to my deares daughter leonarda being alive and well, but also foolish getting death treats for his child from the code monster itself. what the fuck.
Snatcher - well, the Prince, for now - learns some ‘fun’ facts about the Hat Kid.
Takes place in @doodledrawsthings ‘ Prince AU, conceptually.
For an intergalactic spaceship, the kid’s craft wasn’t all that special.
It was more like a jumble of rooms that had been cut out of an actual house and then glued together into something that was meant to look more or less just like that - a house. It was an unusual shape for a ‘house’, though, and while every room was placed in a somewhat logical area in respect to the grand design of the ship - the attic was in the top, the basement was below, et cetera - it still didn’t detract from the sheer chaos of the ship’s design, as if everything had just been stuffed haphazardly into the shape of a spacecraft.
Before now, Snatcher had been convinced it was some bizarre passion project of the kid’s, but now-
Well, he wasn’t sure what to think.
The blueprints present in the kid’s room were pretty bizarre, all things told. He couldn’t figure out many words, save for the few that were written in plain English, rather than Bow or Hat’s strange alien language - though ‘space resistant wood’ and ‘comet proof glass’ weren’t exactly helpful descriptors.
He was still a creature of the night, though.
While the kids slept, he crept upwards, into the attic.
Neither particularly enjoyed going up there - a reminder of certain past events, they’d said. They had also discouraged him from doing so himself, and while he wanted to respect their wishes, he wanted answers more.
The place unnerved him, come to think of it. There was an aura of something malignant in the air. He could taste it, feel it, even. Whether or not it was a conscious power was a different question altogether.
He sincerely hoped it wasn’t.
If he looked through the telescope at the right angle, he could still see an echo of that horrid apocalypse world, covered in an ocean of lava and dominated by a singular grand castle.
He didn’t look through the telescope again, for his own sanity.
Still, he thought, it was just an attic. As he shook himself back into reality, stopped jumping at shadows, he reminded himself: it was just an attic.
Then he saw it - the door. For just long enough to realize it was there before it wasn’t.
He didn’t see anything. He approached nothing and reached forward, turning the knob of a door that didn’t exist and opening the way to a room that was never built. Within, he found nothing - there was an untucked king sized bed that was never slept in, two writing desks on opposite sides of the room, faded pictures in empty picture frames and well-worn unused articles of clothing.
He picked up a nonexistent photo and looked at it - really looked. Surveyed it with all his might, willed his eyes to take in the shapes in the picture.
Finally, he figured out what he wasn’t looking at - two children, one with a bow and one conspicuously hatless. One man and one woman stood behind them; neither could be described in words that Snatcher had ever conceived of. Their images were being erased as quickly as they were being formed; the only definite thing in the photo, besides the kids, were the hat that sat upon the man’s head.
The very familiar, gaudy hat.
“Huh,” Snatcher said, looking up. Something warm trickled down from his nose; he reached up and touched it, then looked at his fingers, now wet crimson liquid. “Oh. That doesn’t seem good.”
Presumably, he passed out afterwards; he couldn’t quite tell, because he was sure he heard someone talking to him just then.
