#two wish

[littleoreo]

Goodbye kiss

[pomsdoodlefort]

Speak Your Wish

Speak the Wish from your Heart, Be sure your Wish is True, If you Lie then you’ll Die, ‘Cause The Avis will come after YOU!

Excerpt From: The Collected Works of Avis Nursery Rhymes: From Crib to School Yard

Inspired by @cinniharpy’s @twowish NaNoWriMo project. One may call it fanart.

Check out Chapter One of Two Wish here!

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[twowish]

Chapter 4: The Fungus Witch and The Ant Queen

The window in front of Rita is huge and octagonal. The moon outside is so full and bright that it shines through the veneer of mold covering the glass, flooding the room with an eerie, green glow.

The space is large, and the furniture is sparse. It’s wide and open, as if cleared for dancing. Perhaps a room used for parties? An elegant chandelier hangs above Rita, its former brilliance now marred by fungal overgrowth. Strings and sheets of it hang down and stretch out around her, like a canopy. It touches the ground and spreads in every direction covering each surface in mold and mildew.

Within Rita’s organic tent, a ring of pale red mushrooms encircle her. The ants march past Noelle’s feet and prowl the perimeter of it all, like tiny soldiers on guard.  

Rita stands motionless in the middle, her back to Noelle. She’s wearing the same outfit that Noelle had seen in all the pictures of her online - a white skirt and a red top. She looks ready to walk out on a tennis court.

Or, she would if it weren’t for the fuzzy green that’s growing up her legs and dotting her clothing. Her thick, brown hair is pulled up into a high ponytail, red mushrooms sprouting throughout it. The tennis racket that once belonged to Augur Samantha Cole - an auspice - hangs by her side, clutched in one hand. Noelle is stunned for a moment, trying to make sense of the bizarre and strangely beautiful scene and the fungus witch that created it. As she watches, Rita lets out a sob.

“Rita?” Noelle calls.

Rita turns quickly, her ponytail swaying. She raises the racket and fixes Noelle with fluorescent green eyes, tears pooling in them. “Who are you!?”

Rita really had ‘gone green,’ but what else did that entail? She was still Rita, right? Noelle moves inside the room, the door swinging closed behind her. “You talked to me online, I’m-”

“Can you help me?” Rita interrupts her, taking a few steps forward and lowering the racket. Her voice is desperate and pleading, her expression panicked. “Please, please I don’t know where she is! I sent the ants but they can’t find her!”

“Who?” Noelle asks.

“My-”

There’s yelling in the hallway. The door’s thrown open, hitting the wall with a bang. Felix, Claude, and Moldinator tumble inside, sprawled on the ground.

“Harold!” Rita growls.

“Harold?” Felix says, perplexed. Claude stands on his chest, carefully trying to avoid the mold on the floor, looking disgusted. His hackles raise at the green around him.

“Witch.” Moldinator address Rita as he gets to his feet, his sunglasses still missing. He unholsters a water gun and aims it at her.

Rita raises the racket again. The mold growing around her legs climbs higher. “You’re with him!”

“No, no!” Noelle tries to correct her, alarm spreading throughout her. “We’ve got nothing to do with him!”

But Rita ignores her. She points the racket at Moldinator. “Where is she! Did you do something to her? I swear, Harold, you’ll lose more than an eye if you hurt her!”

Felix stands, Antgelina’s pocket watch hanging from the chain looped around his arm. “Her who?”

The racket quivers. Mold sprouts from Rita’s hands and crawls down her arms. “My GGF!”

“GGF?” Felix shoots Noelle a questioning look and turns back to Rita. “What, Giant Green Fungus? Cause, uh, I have some good news,” he says, gesturing around the room.

“No,” Rita says coldly, tears forming again in her eyes. “Ghost Girlfriend.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Moldinator says, gun still trained on Rita. “You and the Ant Queen: every exterminator’s nightmare.”

Ghost Girlfriend who’s an Ant Queen? Noelle blinks, trying to put the pieces together. Which of those was her girlfriend’s wish? She needs more information, but Moldinator’s complicating that with his aggression. “Let’s just slow down here.” She raises both hands. “We can talk this out, right?”

Rita grits her teeth. “I’m done talking with Moldy.”

Felix’s face lights up. “That’s what I called him!”

Moldinator spits on the ground.

A green shape forms in one of Rita’s hands. Noelle mistakes it for a tennis ball at first, but then she realizes: it’s mold. Noelle’s mind wanders back to Moldinator’s missing eye. If this escalates any further, how bad will it get? She has to try to talk Rita down, but how? Her experiences with comforting or negotiating feel so limited and inadequate. She isn’t prepared for this.

Noelle says the first thing she can think of to try to sooth Rita. “We’ll find your girlfriend.”

Rita turns on her. “So you do know where she is!”

“No, but we can-”

Rita storms towards her, brandishing the racket, eyes glowing and wild. “Where is Damara!?”

“Whoa,” Felix says. “We don’t-”

Moldinator cuts in. “Don’t know where she is and wouldn’t tell you if we did.”

The ball in Rita’s hand is fully formed and mold has completely encased her arms.

She rounds on Moldinator and he begins to back away. “Hold your fire, fungus witch.”

“No, you’ve done something, Harold; I know it. This is the last time you come and threaten me. I’m not holding anything back anymore!” Rita tosses the mold ball into the air and brings her hands together on the handle of the racket.

Moldinator shoots the water pistol.

A stream of liquid hits Rita in the shoulder just as the net of the racket collides with the falling ball. It smacks Moldinator in the stomach and he doubles over.

Rita clutches gingerly at her shoulder where a wound has opened on her skin. Whatever chemical Moldinator’s concocted, it’s potentially lethal to Rita.

“Wait!” Noelle tries once more, but the following moments descend into pandemonium.

Moldinator recovers and takes aim again.

Rita begins serving mold ball after mold ball with alarming speed - not just at Moldinator - but at all of them.  

Claude screams, watching the mold missiles sail by him. He clutches to Felix’s head, raccoon hands scraping at his face and nearly tearing the mask from his nose and mouth.

“Claude!” Felix yells, stumbling. “I can’t - I can’t see!”

Noelle raises an arm to cover her face amid the volley. There’s a searing pain as a ball hits her in the leg, the mold losing its shape and splattering on impact. She gasps. It hit harder and hurt more than she would have guessed.

A ball hits Felix in the arm as he scrambles. “Shit!”

Moldinator runs around the room, stepping on ants and mushrooms, and firing at Rita as she continues her barrage. There’s a pool of mold growing from her feet. It pulses beneath her, expanding outward. What else could Rita do?  

Another ball hits Noelle in the shoulder, pain radiating from it as she moves for Felix.

Felix lets out more obscenities as he’s struck again. Between trying to wrangle Claude from his head, and dodging the balls, he’s floundering about, and only moving further from the door.

The mold around Rita’s feet has gathered to the size of a small pond. It’s waving back and forth, leaving the floor in large, haphazard chunks. The coverage is so thick over her that Moldinator’s chemical no longer leaves wounds when it hits her. Each successful shot merely causes a small dent in her mold armor before it’s quickly replaced.

Moldinator’s water gun runs dry and he chucks it at Rita.

One last look at Rita reveals a tide of mold swelling up behind her, threatening to crash down. It’s become heavy and viscous.

The bruising balls still continue to be served in every direction. Noelle catches up to Felix and is hit in the side, leaving her ribs throbbing. She goes to grab Felix by the arm, but hesitates.

Felix finally manages to pull Claude from his head and tucks the still frenzied raccoon under his arm. He looks at Noelle, eyes wide and hair a mess. Another ball finds his shoulder and he winces, stumbling to the side.

Noelle motions for the door and runs, feet squashing through the mold expanding out from Rita.  

Felix runs after her, nearly slipping on the thick lake of mold that now covers the floor, obscuring even the trail of ants. They retreat, green pouring into the hallway after them.

Out of the line of fire, Claude stops his frantic movements. He stills under Felix’s arm, exhausted. Felix tries to catch his breath. “What- about the- racket?” he pants out.

“I,” Noelle falters. She hasn’t forgotten about it, but they aren’t going to get it. Not like this. “We’ll come back for it later, or-”

The wall behind them splits open. A wave of mold gushes out, nearly missing them. Noelle backs away, falling over. Felix nearly loses his balance and catches himself on the railing of the upper landing.

Moldinator screams as he sails by, caught in the torrent. The flood hits the railing, leaving him strained against it, sputtering and covered in green.

Noelle scrambles to her feet. Felix is still leaning on the banister as he stares at the hole in the wall.

Rita stands in the remains, her angry gaze fixed on Moldinator. Behind her there’s another wave of towering mold.

“That all you got, fungus witch?” Moldinator says, his hand closing over something on the ground - the water gun he’d lost earlier when Felix tackled him.

“How many times have we asked you to stay away, Harold?” The wave behind her tremors ominously.

Moldinator stands. “Yeah, well, this’ll be the last time.” He raises the gun and fires.

The wave rises and crashes down over him.

The floor beneath Noelle’s feet trembles as long cracks splinter from the point of impact. The railing behind Moldinator is the first to go as it tumbles and drops down.

Noelle’s chest tightens as alarm rushes over her. She steps backward, wavering on her feet. It’s only one floor, it’s not even that high, but the railing - the one thing that’d kept her panic at bay - is falling away as fast as her composure. It’s all happening so fast and it’s all so out of control.

The landing beneath Moldinator goes next, fracturing into huge chunks of falling debris. Moldinator’s gone, disappearing with the rubble, his shrieking nearly drowned out in the din.

How many times had falling invaded her nightmares? How often had she feared the safety and security of solid ground being ripped away? Noelle backs up against the wall, palms flat on either side of her, wide-eyed. It’s like her lungs have shrunk. She can’t get a full breath.

There’s yelling. Felix. Noelle pushes herself from the wall and freezes, watching with horror.

He’s left the crumbling railing and he’s trying to make his way towards her, but the quaking of the landing has him unsteady. He clumsily steps forward, the ground he’d been standing on just a second before plummeting - the last bit to fall away.

Felix loses his balance. He begins to fall backwards, a trust fall with nothing to catch him but the first floor below. Claude’s still on his shoulder, claws digging into his jacket. Felix flails, hands reaching for something, anything.

There isn’t time for panic or hesitation. She can’t even remember making the conscious decision to do it, but Noelle finds herself rushing forward, throwing out an arm, reaching, desperate. There’s a glinting in front of her, and her hand closes around the copper pocket watch still around his arm.

The chain goes tight as Felix grips the other end.

Noelle pulls on the watch, leaning backwards, bringing Felix upright along with it.

He falls forward on his hands and knees onto what remains of the landing, his breathing labored.

Noelle releases the pocket watch and backs up until she hits the wall. With the danger now passed, she collapses against it. She looks over to where Rita had been, but she’s already gone back inside the room, the hole in the wall sealing up with mold and mushrooms.

Claude jumps down from Felix’s still heaving shoulders, his fear of the edge of the ruined platform now seemingly overtaking his fear of the mold. He runs up to Noelle and crawls onto her lap.

Felix gets to his feet and joins them. He sits beside her as they stare out across the second floor of the mansion, processing. The mansion falls eerily silent as dust and particles still hang in the air.

Noelle pets Claude as the world comes back into focus. Her breathing finally begins to slow and the sense of immediate danger begins to ebb away. She concentrates on the fur under her fingers and the raccoon nestles into her - he’s a good comfort, especially with how drained she feels.

She swallows, her mind flickering back to the image of Moldinator falling away amongst the debris. “You think he’s-”

“Moldy?” Felix asks. He’s still staring straight ahead, looking traumatized. “He’s uh - I’m sure he’s - Moldy’s fine. Probably.”

It feels like a hole has opened in her stomach. Moldinator had been trouble from the start, but she certainly didn’t want him hurt. Or worse.  

Felix lifts an arm and the pocket watch slowly turns on the chain. “What was it you said about these? They’re lucky, right? So, uh, guess we have confirmation of that. Thanks, by the way.”

Noelle hums in agreement and nods. With panic subsiding, a numbness is taking over. This auspice should have been in her hands hours ago, and instead it was used against her. Rita had been so hesitant to let any damage befall the racket, but that didn’t seem to matter while she’s ‘gone green.’ Could they help her out of that? Could her girlfriend, Damara?

A quiet returns over them until Felix says, “What?”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t-”

Felix picks up the pocket watch and lifts the cover. Antgelina is there, her antenna wriggling.

“Sorry, ant gal,” he tells her. “Hasn’t exactly been a fun ride out here either.”

Noelle’s hit with a flicker of guilt. She’d brought more than herself into this. “Felix, I had no idea it was going to be like this, or I wouldn’t have...” She wouldn’t have what? Come here? Put him and Claude in danger? She can’t really bring herself to say that because it feels dishonest. She knows nothing would have kept her from pursuing that racket. “Just, I’m sorry.”

Felix closes the pocket watch and says nothing. Noelle wonders if she’s lost her driver. If so, she could hardly blame him.

Claude seems to sense his human’s pensiveness. He rises from Noelle’s lap and crosses onto Felix, settling down and resting his head on his knee.

Felix’s eyes focus on the raccoon he’s petting until his gaze meets hers.  “Hey, this beats driving strangers around all day.”

She’s struck by his use of the word “strangers.” Was she no longer a stranger? Could she be a friend? She finds she likes the idea of someone to really share all of this with - her research, the auspices, her plans, the trip; someone not just a driver that she’s only feeding pertinent details to. She’d spent so long being the only one invested in this that it would be kind of nice to have a friend involved.

Or was that pathetic to think? She knew she’d isolated herself in her pursuits, but now she’s starting to realize to what extent. Afterall, she was paying Felix to come along.

He stands, and Claude climbs his way to his usual perching spot on his shoulder. He offers her a hand. “So, we’ve got a ghost to find, right?”

Noelle looks from his hand to his face. “You’re still up for that?”

Felix scratches at his chin. “Hey, can’t get much worse than what’s already happened, right? So it’s all uphill from here. Hopefully.” He extends a hand again. “One step at a time, as Quasar would say.”

Noelle smiles under the mask. Maybe they could be friends anyway. She finally takes his hand and he helps her to her feet. “I suppose.”

“The Ant Queen awaits,” he tells her.

Previous Chapter 

[cinniharpy]

What am I doing with my life? I stuck a tiny yellow sweater on a raccoon plush because my dudes, my guys, my gals, my non-binary pals, ya gotta be your own biggest fan okay.

So I made my own Claude.

Sorry to those of you who are annoyed by animal sidekicks. I heckin love them and will write them into anything I can, whenever I can. And now that I’m writing something long form and original for the first time in years, you know I had to include one.

Even as a kid those characters were my favorite and you can probably guess why.

I literally have no memories of not having my own animal sidekick(s). Before Pepper I had a Lhasa Apso named Sammy that would follow me around and sleep at the foot of my bed.

And thus, we have Claude: my germaphobic raccoon in a yellow sweater.

Haha I didn’t even have an opinion on raccoons before starting this, and now they’re honestly becoming one of my favorite animals.

[cinniharpy]

A friend scribbled some Claudes today. Claude would absolutely lose his mind over peeps.

[cinniharpy]

Also trying to think of names for chapters. I think it sorely needs it. I was trying to come up with some kind of naming convention, buuut I think it might just be best to make them something from within the chapter.

For a slightly spoiler-y example, I definitely want chapter four to be The Ant Queen and the Fungus Witch.

[cinniharpy]

I’ve got most of the mold mansion planned out for @twowish, and then I have a lot of middle and end parts planned. Buuut I’m so unsure of the next couple mugaffins they’ll chase.

Might let some of the people reading it throw out ideas for auspices and I’ll make a section around that.

All that’s required for an auspice is that it has to have once been an augur’s personal object of emotional value. Like, “this is my lucky x.” So not things like a uhhhh a truck, but stuff like the tennis racket Rita’s got.

[how-romantic]

Dear Daniel,

I'm tired. 

I don't know if you know, but I don't pray to God. I pray to you. I don't even pray, it's more of making wishes.

Did you ever think that some wishes are greater than others? A wish upon a shooting star is much more greater than a wish made on a coin tossed into a well. A wish made before blowing out the birthday candles is greater than a wish made on a fallen eyelash. Isaac and I concluded that rarity makes wishes, for lack of a better word, great. Which means that the rarity all depends on the person, much like everything else.

People pray to God when they want something, right? When something is going wrong? I ended my relationship with God (temporarily? I don't know) because I didn't want to be a person who asked for things when I didn't even give thanks for what I was given. Why didn't I just start thanking God? Because of reasons.

So, I began to ask you for better times because I think someone like you is rare, plus we're family, and family helps each other out. It just seemed okay to ask you. I know it's selfish that I ask for things that will make myself happy, but kjefnkjwbfqhjqbfgjhqg.. everyone is STRESSED OUT. I don't like thinking about my mom and dad, they're old and tired but they can't rest. 

I don't even know if you can hear me out. I like to believe that there's a heaven to bring me peace, knowing you're there, but I could be talking to myself right now. That idea pisses me off. Being 19, I realize that 21 is young. What the fuck? God has a nice plan for us, huh?

2007 was the year I cried. 2008 was the year I tried. 2009 was a transition. 2010 was MY year. 2011 was a rise. 2012 was the year I cried again. 2013, I made a wish.

Your sister, Debbie P.S. Is wish another word for hope?