#nitroleum[]

[redwyverndht]

nitroleum[1] = "Haze Days"

"Wake up, you dumb lizard... You'll be late..."

Grabbing her tail, Elaine tried to knock Lynn off the bed, but the motion only seemed to entrench her further into the bed.

She let out a soft growl. "Come onnn... you know I already failed like three subjects already... I'll just study everything at the last minute and ace all the f... the finals..." Lynn completely fell asleep again, letting out loud snores across the room.

"Y'know, even if I wanted to go back to sleep, your snores wouldn't let me... So you leave me no other choice." Elaine muttered to herself, taking out her phone. She smirked, leaning into Lynn's scaly ear.

"Look, if you manage to make it on time and attend at least four hours worth of classes I'll... order you some pizza. Anchovies and all."

Lynn completely bolted awake, her nostrils flaring at the mention of food. Even when she tried to stop it, her tail would not stop thumping on the mattress. "For real?!", she bolted out.

"For real~" Elaine smiled.

Lynn went from excitement to nervousness. "Uh... But I don't even know what subject we're on! Are you sure it's going to-" Elaine cut her off by shoving a bunch of notebooks onto her face.

"My notes. Take em."

Lynn looked at her, then at the notebooks. They were full of small page finders, all neatly labeled with markers and washi tape. Looking back at her own notes, they were all completely disorganized, missing pages here and there, with her borderline incomprehensible handwriting.

"O- oh. Thanks... I guess."

"Don't mention it." Elaine smiled. "As long as it gets you to go to class again. Besides, they've already started admitting nonhumans! I've slowly seen more and more of them lately."

Looking at the side, Lynn remembered something. "Oh, right. That... Do you think I'll stand out as a freak the moment everyone sees me? It's just... I don't like how they look at me." She let out a sniffle. "S- sorry, I'm just a bit-"

Opening her eyes, she could feel a soft hand caressing her horns, the overwhelmingly soft sensation stopping her in her tracks.

"Where's the Lynn that would down three final assignments in one day? Where's that hopeless workaholic that would get the highest marks in class?" She looked at Elaine, rubbing the tears from her eyes. "Come on, don't stress out more. You're not harming anyone just by being you."

"...but what if they all hate me?"

"Then that's their goddamn problem, and they can get fucked." Elaine playfully replied. She stuffed her own notes into Lynn's bag and gave it to her.

"Now go out there. Show them."

/* AN: a little thing I'm working on! this time around im not really doing big fancy comics or videos, just small short slice of life stories that (may) turn into something bigger :3 also I need more down to earth fluff rn or I die */

[redwyverndht]

As she stood beside the mirror, her reflection was not her own.

A yearning for something previously unattainable, unthinkable, which promised to elevate her from an empty existence into the greatest halls of nirvana.

--

Even when she was the same as everyone else— flesh, hands, face, mind— the wall between her and the others was hard to ignore. She was certain they didn't harbor any ill will (yet), but the facade she had so carefully constructed had started to show its cracks in the mirror.

Every numbing day, every tedious small talk, eating her up, slowly, not leaving anything behind. Empty platitudes to her, the being that moved her mouth, the face that expressed restrained happiness, all of it; it wasn't hers.

One more shift. Just one more shift. That's what she told herself when returning to her job every day.

"I'm ××××××, how may I help you? Sorry, we've been having ×××××× shortages recently. Do you have a doctor's prescription? That's a controlled substance, I'm afraid. Could you fill this form, please?"

The days started blurring. Her mouth moved on its own. It recited words she could no longer understand.

And the yearning remained, as her soul orbited her body. She watched from afar as the vultures picked apart her living corpse.

---

One particular day, a client— not quite human, but not quite animal— asked for something unusual. Her lips moved as they were trained to, but she couldn't get the beast in front of her out of her mind. As her lungs exhaled canned, empty phrases, she looked at it.

It— no, she— looked at her with a neutral, yet optimistic expression, never gloomy.

And she saw herself in their reflection.