#masked are hedonistic and stationary things. buddy cracks in a very special and unique way

[pangolin-404]

thinking about how buddy is inherently more durable than its crew. they are humans (presumably), soft and killable. but buddy is not its body, but a mask, which is very hard to break. it can get burned, shot, dismembered, poisoned, and blown up six ways from sunday, and its mask will be fine. thinking about how the crew settles into that mindset that buddy is innately more expendable whether they want to or not

it can travel in front. if there is a bracken, it will follow last. it is first to cross the gap to determine if the jump is worth the risk. it loves to do this because it keeps its crew, significantly more vulnerable than itself, safe. it serves as bait for a spider and laughs when it is numbed with venom and collapses, laughs knowing it just had to get the thing to turn around, to leave itself open to be killed by someone else. fifteen teleports it for the seventh time and grows numb to seeing what a thumper does to a body, watching the host stop moving in the ship. it shoves five out of a nutcracker's line of sight and gets shot and still twitches and laughs as it bleeds its energy out, to keep its attention on it rather than anyone else. how readily it will split from the others and serve itself on a silver platter to anything and everything, just to keep them alive.

its crew don't like it, how it has formed some odd complex about it. it never gets downright reckless with itself, because getting a body is a pain kept to a minimum, but that doesn't stop that looming knowledge of how it can be used. a useful ability to have, leaving it and its team assured that there is a fail-safe. that it's okay for someone to lag behind or march into danger, because they can always get it another body. it is the perfect sacrificial lamb.

it gets a little scared when the baboon hawks rip it apart, seeking for things to swallow whole, and wrap their maws around its skull. turretfire or a nutcracker could hit its mask. a pack of dogs fighting over it could (and eventually do) crack its mask. but it does it anyways, no matter how it disturbs itself or its team, because that is the role it has embraced; it is happy to die for them. it can afford to get eaten alive, so why wouldn't it place itself between a dog and its beloved crew? it is simultaneously ready to die and terrified of death