that certainly is a voice, but the only thing around here is... a dog. its mouth isn’t moving at all, but it’s definitely looking intently at mew and wagging its tail so hard its whole body wiggles along with it.
they cock their head. that crisp voice calls out again. ‘small thing! i want to play.’
it sure seems like the voice is coming from the dog, but that can’t be true. dogs can’t talk, and certainly not in a human language.
‘can you understand me?’ mew asks, lazily flipping onto their back to look at the dog from another angle. the dog seems to take it as an invitation, because it quickly pounces on them and begins pawing at their belly. mew squeaks and flails, giving the dog a few firm swats on the snout with a paw.
to its credit, it backs off. mew floats back upright and pouts, making sure to put a little more space between them.
‘play? please?’ again, that voice comes from the dog... no, wait, not the dog. mew hadn’t noticed before, but a part on the dog’s collar lights up every time ‘it’ speaks. they can see little holes for the speaker too, now that they’re looking. huh.
‘ah! bonnie!’ the dog’s head whips around, ears perking, at the sound of another voice calling out. mew can see a man running towards them -- before he gets close enough to see them, they go invisible.
‘i made a small friend!’ the dog, bonnie, exclaims from her collar. she turns back to look at them, wagging tail quickly coming to a stop when she realizes they’re “gone”. the human rubs the back of his neck and laughs.
‘chasing squirrels, huh? c’mon, we gotta go.’
‘my friend is gone!’ bonnie quickly gets back to her feet and runs to the human’s side, looking back and forth as if she can’t decide whether to be disappointed in mew’s disappearance or excited by her human’s return. the human turns to leave, bonnie tagging along at his side, and mew shimmers back into visibility.
...
a collar that lets creatures speak so humans can understand...
Erasure, the stars had claimed. The word had been like a switch— Yggdrasil wastes. Watching, waiting, whittling the time away as the wind and ice whips through the cracks in the makeshift shelter. Though her body shields the scores of people inside from the worst of it, it’s not enough for their comfort. While the disasters rage outside, a halcyon calm blankets her, body and mind, an island amidst the sea of worried faces and crying voices.
Yggdrasil is very far away, slipping into a trance.
The elements’ aberrant behavior had niggled on Yggdrasil’s mind for days now. It harkened back to the primordial skies of home, right as she’d been conferred. A wild age, before the very fabric of space had been brought to heel. The sky had been crimson, swathed in hot smoke and set ablaze by every-which-way-falling islands that slowly spurred all into perpetual motion. In the fringes, yet undisturbed, a deathly chill had settled. Cold fog. Suspended white motes, biting pinpricks to the touch and sludge-like to coast through. And where opposite elements met, deadly potentiality. Lightning, coursing, racing. Chaos undeterminable, as though the world was trying to destroy itself.
All had been hostile to life, no greenery yet realized. It had looked a bit like this, like the hailstorm outside, like the fiery rain beyond that, like the churn of desert heat and winter bluster. Without life to look upon the chaos, it had not occurred to Yggdrasil how awful it had been until now. Her compassion was lacking. But this cold, this spreading numbness would surely kill. Yggdrasil recognizes it in the scrunched faces of these people. Fear and resignation. She can identify nothing else. Fear for what could come; null, and then resignation for what would; null. What else could there possibly be?
Through life and death, she had been bound to this place for quite some time. Was erasure the path to her home?
Unbidden, that infernal voice comes, a whisper from behind the eyes.
We cannot be suffered to live too long. You outlive your use, consigned for ruin. Another. Do not forget that you could be rotting with the rest of your ilk in that shrieking tower.
It is a peculiarity of creation, a curious thing… We know this to be true, dear Yggdrasil; the better we are, the quicker we fade into obsolescence.
Correct, she replies inadequately. Her chimes sounds like they could be a lullaby. There, I am not needed. But here— however temporary it may be, she will not abandon this life.
As sudden as its onset, the storm stops. The city darkens.
When the wave of light washes over, a burning spike of disorientation drives into her. She feels whole, too massive for this vessel as new vitality surges from a seemingly unending wellspring. Burnt nerve endings knit themselves back together as plant tendrils seep deep down, her consciousness expanding outward like a cast net.
She binds herself to the island willingly, with the discomfort and hyperawareness of someone wearing an outfit for the first time. It is a painfully nascent contract, but it would do. Her body disperses and mind splinters, stretching itself thin as a veil.
She merely wishes to be of use. Piece by piece, Yggdrasil disseminates into the earth.
He had heard her coming, of course. He didn’t turn around.
He was in an odd mood that night. Thinking of things he knew were pointless.
She asked what the hell was up. He warned her it would be a long story. She shrugged and settled in across from him.
It wasn’t so bad, at first. She listened. They drank -- mostly, he drank.
It became easier for him to emote as the night crawled by, gesturing and stammering emphatically, but his thoughts started choking him. A few times, they both sat in heavy silence as he visibly struggled to force the next words past the lump in his throat. She offered him a sip of her drink to compose himself. He accepted, shakily, and continued.
And now, he’s clenching his fist around the glass like a lifeline.
“I couldn’t kill him. What kind of coward -- selfish, foolish -- ”
“Don’t say that about yourself.”
It’s the first objection she’s had all night. He jerks slightly in surprise, blinking away a fresh wave of tears.
“What do you know.”
“Forgiveness isn’t my department. Helping people know they aren’t alone in making mistakes is.”
He moves as if to jerk to his feet, shoulders tensed and eyes flaring with anger, but loosens his grip on the glass and stills his hands in his lap. He will not lose his patience here.
But she notices. She snorts. “I know you’re angry at me for saying it. You think I’m not used to that by now? That’s adorable.”
He does stand, this time. So does she. He throws a punch to her stomach.
She doubles over briefly, coughing before straightening up. He stands there, fist clenching until he feels his nails digging into his palm. The pain clears some of the fog of alcohol, but doesn’t stop his thoughts and heart from racing.
She won’t retaliate. When he realizes this, he nearly screams in frustration.
“Don’t -- don’t just ssstand there, dammit. D-do something.”
“Like what? Don’t forget, you’re still recovering.”
“I don’t fucking know!”
So she grabs his good arm. Drags him out of the bar and onto the empty sidewalk. Cracks her knuckles.
“You want me to do something about it?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he throws another punch to her jaw.
It’s clumsy. It doesn’t connect. She deflects it easily and returns with one of her own to the cheek.
He goes down like a sack of bricks. But he’s not unconscious.
Not if the shuddering and choking sobs mean anything.
WEIGHT of a beating heart all his own could grow to be a crushing one if he had not grown infinitesimally stronger than that in an instant. Mysterious as Stands themselves, his powers had returned to him to bottle that shit right up further and get him to work doing what he does best.
Each punch turns one apparition after the next into a burst of dust until he's shrouded in a cloud of the stuff. His battle cries within are overpowered by lighting that cracks, splinters to strike the ground surrounding him, the dust sucked toward the energy and forming ravenous creatures that dwarf even himself. He's trapped. Just kidding. Closing his fist on his scarf, he whips it off with such force that it bisects foes blocking his path and fires himself like a cannonball through the opening to crash into more soldiers with his pointed scales.
His rampage is stopped, jarringly, when he knocks into one of the soldiers and its form stays solid. Star Platinum kicks against his opponent to put distance between them and finds his stuck. His scales are embedded inside the behemoth like a sword in stone and it's raising a claw-tipped limb in preparation for disemboweling him.
liberation, noun
\ˌli-bə-ˈrā-shən \
an occasion when something or someone is released or made free
The morning light that crept through the blinds in Casey’s room looked a bit brighter than usual. Leaning forward, the orange-furred feline sat up and rubbed the sleep away from his eyes, arms reaching above his head and back arching in a long, drawn-out stretch. Pushing the bed sheets off of himself, Casey slowly got out of bed with a tired groan. He took a glass of water placed on his bedside table and took a few sips to refresh his mind and body before starting his morning routine. First order of business: take a shower.
He started by walking towards his closet to grab some fresh clothes. But once he opened the doors, the cat noticed something odd placed on the floor inside. "What the eff...?" He muttered under his breath, leaning down to pick it up. It was a present, wrapped in ornate paper and tied together with ribbons. It’s a bit early for this kinda thing, Casey thought to himself.
Placing the box on his bed, he observed it for a moment. It was a decently-sized gift box, but it didn’t feel too heavy. There was a nametag tied around one of the ribbons, too...
“Happy Snowtide!
To: Casey
From: Noel”
Noel? Who’s Noel? Snowtide? Is that being celebrated now? The Hartley kid had quite a few questions, but he couldn’t really answer any of them. What he does know, however, is that there’s something meant for him inside this present, and if he doesn’t open it now, it’s gonna bother him throughout the rest of the day. Narrowing his eyes in anxious curiosity, Casey tore the ribbons off and unwrapped his gift to find a plain cardboard box underneath, sealed with a few strips of clear tape. His anxiety only grew. What’s in this box? Is it a bomb? Or is it an actual present?
Taking a claw, he cut into the tape that barely sealed the box’s flaps and opened it up to find...
An old mining helmet. The lightbulb on the headlamp was shattered and there were a few red stains scattered all over it. Blood.
Casey knew exactly what this helmet is.
A lump formed in his throat and his stomach started doing acrobatics. It belonged to one of them. He could feel his breath become more panicked. Why the hell would someone give this to him? How did they get this? Various emotions welled up inside Casey’s heart, and none of them were pleasant. In a single, sudden motion, he picked the hat up with the intention of tossing it out his window. But he stopped just as suddenly. As soon as he held the hat in his hands, Casey started hearing things. Seeing things. His vision grew blurry and dark, but he didn’t lose consciousness. No, it was like he was seeing or experiencing something that wasn’t really there.
Screams and cries of agony pierced through the darkness of the abandoned mines. Everything had collapsed around them. Some things even collapsed onto them. There were no lights, nothing that could be used to see through the cold, black void that swallowed the group of hard-working citizens whole. They were trapped. The elevator fell and the mine fell apart in an instant. The smell of blood and ash slowly started to fill the damp air.
One person, however, was awake and unharmed.
“Dave?! RICK! Someone answer me, dammit! What the fuck just happened?!” A panicked voice cried out, demanding answers that he would never get. All of the screams of pain had quite literally died out. Not a single mortal soul was in the mines other than Eide. The cultist scrambled to turn the lamp on his helmet on, but no light would shine. He was stuck. There was nothing that he could do. Nothing except scream the names of his comrades in anguish.
Suddenly, he could hear humming. A song directly behind him. Eide turned around to find...
“Y-You! My God, it’s you! Those little shits, they destroyed us! Everything that we’ve done for this town, they just went and took everything away! Please, let me find them and deliver them to you! I can’t let our home go downhill! Not again!”
*@#^%&%$#!@$$%^$%
“...No. No! It’s not too late! I can fix this, please!”
%$#(!@)#(@($%$*%#
“NO! No, my job isn’t over yet! This place needs to be cleansed! With those brats out there, Possum Springs can’t-- Wait. Wait, what are you doing?! Let go of me!! Oh lord, no!! NO!! NOT ME!! I DON’T WANT TO GO DOWN THERE!! NO!! NOOOOOOOOOOO--”
Eide’s scream faded away into the void at the center of everything. And Casey returned to his room. Speechless, he clutched the mining hat in his hands. He stood in place for what felt like minutes.
Then he placed the hat onto his bedside table. And he smiled a bittersweet smile.
So when she returns to her room and finds a cute pink box wrapped in a bow sitting on her bed, she drops her bag of (thankfully not fragile) groceries on the ground and rushes over.
It looks so... decorative. More like the idealistic version of a present than anything actually wrapped by hand. She sits on the bed with the box in her lap (it feels so light...!) and begins tugging the ribbon off, determined to get it off in one piece to be saved for later.
The bow comes off. She lifts the lid reverently.
There’s a gentle glow inside, a homesick woodsy smell, and nothing else.
Piper squints. Flips the box upside down and shakes it. Sticks her hand inside to make sure there’s no false bottom.
Nothing.
She clicks her tongue in disappointment, then sets the box off to the side and replaces the lid.
When she gets to her feet, a sudden breeze rustles her hair.
She turns to the window to confirm it is, in fact, closed.
–「 You sit at the edge of the water, with the tiny boat you want to send entire novella length epitaphs on. But you’ve only got so much room, and so much weight before you’ll sink the damn thing. Ripping out pages from your usual travel notebook, you write down a list of names of people you miss, and pick tonight to let it not be complicated. If you don’t assign time to hurt, you’ll wallow in it forever. Or at the very least, until someone pulls you out.」
「 The pieces of paper are small, so you write as tiny as you can.」
> Karkat: Grieve.
NEPETA –
I KNOW EQUIUS SAYS HE DOESN’T BELIEVE I FAILED THE BOTH OF YOU, BUT I REALLY DON’T CARE WHAT HE SAYS! I DID. I COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER TO YOU, THROUGH EVERY STEP OF OUR MISERABLE ADVENTURE. YOU DESERVED BETTER.
KANAYA –
WHAT WAS I SO AFRAID OF BACK ON THAT PIECE OF SHIT ROCK? ALMOST NONE OF US SURVIVED, AND IF NOTHING ELSE, I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE FOR YOU. I’M A FUCKING IDIOT, AND A TERRIBLE FRIEND. GOD, I HOPE YOU MADE IT OUT ALIVE, AND YOU’RE HAPPIER NOW.
「 You pause on the next name, the already tight line of your protein chute constricting further. But you said you wouldn’t back down, so you write his name, and go over it a few times. You don’t miss the person you watched beat the living shit out of Terezi. But you miss the person you thought you knew. You miss the purple text, sometimes scattered, sometimes left on read for hours. 」
GAMZEE –
WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED? WHERE DID EVERYTHING WITH YOU, WITH US? WITH EVERYTHING JUST GO SO FUCKING WRONG? I HATE THIS.
–「 It’s all you can get through. You move on.」
ERIDAN –
I BELIEVED IN YOUR STUPID ASS. AND THE WORST PART OF IT IS? THERE’S STILL A TEENY, TINY PART OF ME THAT THINKS YOU COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER. I THINK ABOUT YOU EVERY ONCE AND A WHILE, BACK WHEN WE WOULD TALK SHIT AND GOSSIP. BUT THEN I REMEMBER HOW IT ENDED, AND THEN I FEEL LIKE A GOD DAMN ASSHOLE FOR WASTING MY TIME. WOULD VISITING YOU REALLY HAVE CHANGED ANYTHING?
–「 And with that, you tuck the little pieces of paper in the boat, and let it all go. You can’t hold onto these things anymore. You need to move on. You need to stop making the same mistakes with the people who are still here. This is your first step in trying. 」
JAGGED edges of crumbling buildings catch the cries of desperate test subjects still searching for their doubles, hushing them, making the task that much more difficult. If it weren’t for that, what would have been streets once-upon-a-time would be peaceful in its quiet. Sun filters green light through the ivy smothering an overpass onto Star Platinum crouched beneath, where he's scanning the collection of fresh footprints collected there. He’d tell the others that yelling wouldn’t do any good at this stage, had he not spent too much time on helping others search for their doubles already. They’d seen his prowess for traversing the ruins and roped him in.
He had wanted to get his head into a space where he can handle a high-pressure predicament using non-violence.
Footprints from inhabitants of this lost city filter out, as do intruders' tennis shoes, heels, until he picks apart each bootprint. His target’s footing is as unsteady as Star Platinum’s attempts at flight. In spite of this, his double has gone from back alleys to pushing through the densely overgrown downtown. Star Platinum breaks into a sprint low through the grasses bleeding up through the asphalt on foot to conserve energy as much as he can. He has to move quickly between rubble less because he’s in a hurry and more to blend in.
If Jotaro were as ill as his double is right now, Star Platinum would be closer to an apparition and than a manifestation if he were summoned, though that'd be the extent of the difference. Right now, he’s subjected to a physical form. What had started as patches of discoloration has spread until he’s akin to a forgotten action figure left to the elements. He feels stiff, like whatever he’s made of has dried out until cracks have begone to form. It’s worst around his hips, where his skin has chipped away to reveal the robotic joints hidden underneath. The rest of his joints are well on their way to suffering the same degradation.
That’s how he gets as close to Mr.Platinum as he does. His double, huddled inside what must have been a department store, eyes him when he darts in to clamber behind a chunk of fallen ceiling, then goes back to sucking in each breath like it's full of broken glass. His aim had been to fool Mr.Platinum into thinking he was one of the native automatons of the area. It hardly matters what his impression was when there's blood crusting around his mouth, trailing down and getting lost in his getup. Mr.Platinum is wisely wearing a poncho to keep whatever he’s packing obscured. It’s a plastic poncho and Star Platinum superior eyesight can see through it like a wet t-shirt. He’s got a rifle and a hunting knife. The rifle is busted. It’s for show. The knife is no joke.
Another reason he waited as long as he did to come to get Mr.Platinum is he didn’t need clairvoyance to know he only had one shot. He has vague smatterings left of what happened to him. His double is veteran battling PTSD. Even if he didn’t have a virus breaking him down, this would be a challenge. Letting him get this sick would be the best way to get him to cooperate peacefully.
Attacking him would be more efficient. Today, this isn’t about efficiency. The efficient way is not always the right way when dealing with people.
Wrapping his face in his tattered scarf, Star Platinum listens to him cough finish a cough fit before peeking up over the wall at him. Mr.Platinum points the rifle at him from under the poncho with an unhinged glint in his eye that fades in his exhaustion. “ Not dead yet. If you'd wanted to help me, you should have answered my pleas to keep me hidden days ago. Scram. ” He wheezes, sliding further down the wall. His coloration under the hood looks about as dreadful as his own. Star Platinum pulls a candy bar from his satchel and creeps out low to the ground with the treat extended. He throws it to him at a respectful distance mostly because he can no longer ignore how Mr.Platinum's hand is ghosting for that fucking knife.
Mr.Platinum snatches it up and doesn’t bother to dust it off when he tears it open with his teeth, practically eating the wrapper with it. If Star Platinum could sigh in relief, he would. He crouches there instead, statue still, even after Mr.Platinum finishes. “Thanks.” He says softly, sincerely, then his face twists into a scowl. “It's too little, too late. Leave.”
[Your family is searching for you.]
Says Star Platinum and clenches his fists to stop himself from intervening when Mr.Platinum jolts to his full 6’5” height. That feral gleam is back in his glare, so Star Platinum pushes on.
[Jotaro’s worried. Your mother is worried. Mr.Avdol went to lead a larger party here. They're fighting to get you home. ]
He knows it was a risk to name names. The knife slices out of the poncho, though it’s not pointed at him. It’s pointed up like a finger asking for a moment to think, Mr.Platinum’s brow twisted in intense confusion, gaze darting around to anything besides the crouching figure in front of him. Star Platinum can’t tell if he’s going to make a break for it, fight, or pass out.
[If you can’t walk, I can carry you.]
A coughing fit robs Mr.Platinum’s strength and Star Platinum lurches forward to catch him and the knife. There’s blood regardless, dribbling out of eyes to join the steams from his nose and mouth. Star Platinum’s shaking to keep upright himself, finding new strength when his double clutches to any part of him he can find purchase, gulping, “I wanna go home.”
It takes some fumbling around, but his hand awkwardly clutching his phone manages to press the [SEAL] button on the app.
[You have to know where home in order to do that. Figure that out. Be good to those you find there.]
When the bubble pops, he's gone. The one left behind clatters to the floor, locked in his pose by his failing joints.
