Whump Prompt #100
The circled area of a rifle is called the muzzle. In the last prompt, I talked about my hunting gloves, which made me think about hunting. Somehow, my train of thought took me to the terminology behind rifles, and I snickered thinking about the muzzle. Since I was still sorta thinking about whump, the name was funny because it is literally called a muzzle. The end of a gun has the same name as a frickin muzzle. And then I got an idea.
The caretakers are knowledgeable about guns. Maybe they're cops or in the military, maybe they're just gun owners. Either way, they know their way around a rifle.
They had rescued the whumpee, who had been unconscious. They had treated the whumpee's wounds and tucked them into bed, still unconscious. With nothing left to do, the caretakers stood outside the room whumpee was in, door open a tad, ready to come in if needed. To ease off the stress of whumpee's condition, they begin conversing. Somehow, the conversation goes to guns.
Meanwhile, the whumpee wakes up, but stays still and quiet like a good pet would. They panic because they're on a bed, which isn't allowed, but they aren't given permission to move, so they have to stay there. They hear voices out in hallway, but don't respond; they don't have permission to make any noise. Then they hear the dreaded word: muzzle. The whumpee panics even more because they must have been oh so bad! The muzzle is for when they're bad. It was on almost constantly when whumper first got them, but they learned to be good enough to not need the muzzle. But they must've done something to warrant the muzzle. Maybe it's because they're on the bed? But they can't get off, they don't have permission! It's so unfair, they didn't get on the bed themselves! They were put there in their sleep! They can't be punished for that, can they?
Little to whumpee's knowledge, caretakers are just having a casual conversation about guns.
OR
Same thing, but with the barrel. The muzzle is the end of the barrel, the long, hollow, metal rod that the bullet travels through when it is shot. Maybe the whumper would shove the whumpee in a barrel and nail the lid on, leaving them there for however long they pleased.
OR
The caretaker is knowledgeable about guns. Whumpee, who was kidnapped from their home before caretaker rescued them, asks caretaker to teach them how to wield guns, wanting to have a way to defend themselves when caretaker isn't around. Caretaker agrees and begins teaching them.
They're sitting down together with a dismantled rifle as the caretaker teaches whumpee the different parts of a rifle. All goes well with the butt, stock, chamber, action, trigger, etc. But when they reach the barrel/muzzle, whumpee panics.
Caretaker curses, having forgotten that whumper had used the different kind of muzzle/barrel to hurt whumpee. They reassure and comfort whumpee telling them that it's alright, it's just the names of parts of a gun. A muzzle/barrel will never be used to hurt whumpee again.
When whumpee calms down, caretaker finishes explaining how guns work, avoiding the word muzzle/barrel. Maybe they and whumpee come up with a new word to call the muzzle/barrel to help whumpee not be scared.
OR MAYBE SOME TIME AFTER THAT
Maybe caretaker has a muzzle loader. With older guns, you would have to load the gun by shoving the bullet and black powder through the muzzle to the bottom of the barrel until it is in the chamber. We don't use that technology much anymore, but you can still buy muzzle loader and people do hunt with them, others collect them because they're reenactors or antique collectors, others just wanna feel like a cowboy (which is entirely understandable).
Caretaker grabs their muzzle loader to show it to whumpee. They say something along the lines of, "Hey, look at this! This one is really cool. This is what guns used to all be like. This sorta thing would've been used by cowboys, or in the Civil War. It's called a muzzle loader, because of how ya load it through the ______."
Whumpee panics when they hear "muzzle." Caretaker realizes what they've done. They didn't say muzzle when referring to the muzzle of the gun, but they didn't think about filtering the title of the gun type! They hurriedly comfort the whumpee, saying they didn't mean to say it, they just wanted to show them the ______ loader, and it'll be alright, they won't get hurt, they're safe.
