arthropod-concoctions

[arthropod-concoctions]

(ao3)

We should make a widow's alliance. You, me, Grian... when our husbands inevitably die, let's team up, alright?

Well, didn't that work out swimmingly.

Scott had started to regret the proposal as soon as he saw Jimmy's body. His heart was so broken he didn't think he could ever team with anyone again, even Cleo... but then she had gone and died as well, Bdubs outliving her, much to both their surprise. None of it was happening the way he'd imagined it.

But a promise was a promise. He'd promised to start the widows' alliance, and so here he sat, Bdubs opposite him, amidst the violets. He sneezed. "Bless you," Scott said automatically.

"Thanks," Bdubs replied, looking to the side, towards the sunset. "So, uh, are we expecting anybody else?" he asked awkwardly.

Scott shrugged. "I invited Grian, but Scar's still alive, so..."

"Right. Well hey, maybe Scar will show up instead. You'll like that, right?"

Scott sighed. He deserved the jab, in a way. He could tell he was doing a terrible job making Bdubs feel welcome at the alliance which he'd said was for all widows, but sorry if he couldn't bring up the enthusiasm to ally happily with a different person he barely trusted when his husband just died!

"This was a bad idea," he blurted out. "Maybe we should just-"

But his words of regret were interrupted by rustling in the bushes outside. Scott saw Bdubs tense up, and he got up and turned around to see what was going on-- when suddenly, a figure leapt into the clearing, covered in red and gold.

"Am I late?" Martyn, the Hand of the Red King, asked.

* * *

Bdubs leapt to his feet. "YOU! You stay back, you monster, you-" he reached for his sword.

Scott held out a hand to hold him back, but his feelings were no kinder. "The eyes aren't looking, Martyn. If you want to murder us, do it in the morning. Go on back to your king now."

Between gasps for breath, Martyn said: "The king is dead."

"Wait, what?"

"Red spring has begun. I've slayed the tyrant..."

"Again!?" Bdubs asked.

Martyn kept talking, and didn't react to Bdubs' outcry. He was shaking, Scott noticed. "Not sure what comes next, honestly. I figured they'd have more plans for me, but..."

"Why?" Scott asked. "He made you do it the first time to go red, why again?"

"He didn't make me do anything. I did it-" Martyn collapsed onto his hands and knees, sobbing. "I did it myself! The voices got so loud, 'red spring, red spring!', and I just- I couldn't ignore them anymore! I had to! I thought they would- oh, my lord, I'm so sorry..."

Scott shared a glance with Bdubs, who shook his head slowly, clearly skeptical. Scott looked back at Martyn, having his breakdown on the ground-- and some part of his broken, messed up heart felt bad. Bad enough to squat down next to him and put his hand on Martyn's shoulder.

"It'll be alright," he heard himself say. "You're in the widow's alliance now."

"No he is not!" Bdubs protested immediately.

"The Red Army'll be hunting me," Martyn said weakly. "I killed the King, I can't go back there... You guys were my only chance..." he looked up at Bdubs with teary eyes, and Scott watched Bdubs ball his fists, then release them with a huff of breath.

"Alright, sure. And then what? We all turn against Scar and Grian?"

"We'll figure that out in the morning," Scott said. "For now, let's just get some rest."

Yeah, this widow's alliance thing turned out nothing like he'd imagined. But maybe that was for the best. With an antsy Bdubs and a traitorous Martyn who was apparently hearing voices to wrangle... well at least they'd keep his mind away from Jimmy.

[arthropod-concoctions]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63632695

My @mcyt-winter-of-mf gift for @t4t4tclethian ! Some PearlB for you, I hope you enjoy, I had a blast writing it!

v Fic below cut v

The first time Bigb encountered Pearl, he was fifteen years old.

There was a window in his schedule, before his bedtime, where he was free to do as he wished; a lot of summer days, he spent it sitting at a creek in the garden, listening to the frogs. Sometimes he talked to them-- they never responded, of course. They were too busy trying to be the loudest frog in the pond to worry about a human boy observing them from dry land. It was a nice change of pace for Bigb; after a whole day of following protocols, having to carefully say the right things to the right people, it was nice to just sit back, watch, and listen, without anyone expecting something from him.

Which made it an even bigger surprise when one day he heard a small, high-pitched voice say: “What a bunch of show-offs, huh?”

Baffled, Bigb looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. It didn't sound like any of the gardeners he saw regularly, and he didn't see anyone around. Just as he thought he'd probably imagined it, he heard the voice again: “Down here!”

He looked down to see a single frog sitting on the rocks to his left, looking out at the choir in the pond. The frog opened its mouth, and talked: “Look at 'em. They all want to marry me, you know. That's what the singing is for.”

“Right,” Bigb said, nodding. Male frogs croak to attract a mate, he'd learned that in his biology lessons. That meant the frog he was talking to was probably a girl frog... a frog girl? He wasn't sure what to do with this information. He hadn't exactly learned a protocol for talking to frogs.

Fortunately, the frog kept talking. “What's your name?” she asked, looking up at him now.

That he did know the answer to. “I am Prince Bartholomew Anton Statz, first of his name, heir to the throne of Evon.” he hesitated, and added: “...but some people just call me Bigb.”

“Bigb,” the frog repeated, the 'b's popping as they came out of her frog mouth. It sounded nice. “Good name. I'm Pearl.”

“Nice to meet you, Pearl,” Bigb said, and... once again had no idea what to do next. Luckily, when he looked up he could see his attendant, Ren, approaching in the distance. “Oh- looks like I'll have to go now.”

“Aww, already? We've barely talked,” Pearl said.

“I'm sorry,” Bigb said, and then, despite the awkwardness, added: “Maybe we can talk tomorrow?”

Pearl hummed, and shook her little frog head, as much as that was possible. “Probably not. Try next month, when the moon is full again.”

Bigb nodded. “I'll remember that. Goodbye, Pearl,” he said, as he got up.

“Bye!” she replied, but already her voice was difficult to hear among the calls of the others frogs. Bigb shot a glance up at the moon-- nearly full, but beginning to wane-- dusted off his trousers, then started walking up to Ren. He couldn't let Ren see him talking to frogs; that would cause rumors, and rumors were never good for a prince. Bigb could behave himself, and he would.

But he'd definitely be going back to that pond.

Go back he did; the moment his schedule was clear on the next full moon's evening, he marched over to the same creek. He sat down and called out: “Pearl?”

“Bigb!” she responded immediately, and Bigb spotted Pearl hop out of the pond and climb onto the same spot she'd sat the month before. “You remembered!”

Bigb chuckled at that. “I found a talking frog, I wouldn't just forget about that.” His smile faded as he continued: “You know, I don't mean to be rude, but... why are you a talking frog, Pearl?”

Pearl let out a low croak which Bigb supposed was like a sigh. “Because I'm cursed.”

“Huh,” Bigb replied. “Now who would do that, curse a frog to talk?”

“I've- Bigb!” Pearl said in an indignant voice. “The talking part isn't the curse, the frog part is!”

“Oh. Ooh.” Bigb felt his cheeks flush, and he buried his head in his hands. “I'm sorry. I don't know why I didn't consider that!”

Pearl giggled at that. It sounded a bit odd, but it was a very human sound, all things considered. Bigb considered what Pearl had said. Cursed to be a frog... “Honestly, I think I wouldn't mind being a frog,” he said.

“It's a carefree life,” Pearl admitted. “Swimming through creeks, catching bugs... but it gets dull sometimes. And good luck finding someone to talk to. Other frogs... aren't the best listeners.” She looked back towards the pond, where the frog bachelors had once again begun their overlapping songs.

“I get... dumber, when I can't see the moon. That's why I told you to come back on the full moon only. When it's new moon I'm almost entirely in frog mode, and... it gets real tempting to just embrace it. Maybe pick one of those fellows, and- I don't know. I don't really want to be a proper frog, but it beats being lonely.”

“Is there any way to lift the curse?” Bigb asked.

“Same as there always is. True love's kiss.”

Bigb didn't say anything. He couldn't help there. He didn't love Pearl, and he never would, because she was... well, a frog. And he was a prince, and a prince could not kiss a frog. What if he got some kind of illness, and had to explain that to the medic? It wasn't proper, so he wouldn't do it.

No, there was no way for Bigb to lift the curse, but he could at least make it as nice for Pearl as possible. “I'll keep you company,” he promised. “Every full moon, I'll come talk to you. Okay?”

“Thank you, Bigb,” Pearl said, looking up at him, “That means a lot. Really.”

And Bigb kept his promise; every month, all three days of the full moon, he went to the pond and he talked to Pearl. He told her about his lessons, and about the state of the country. He told Pearl when his parents died, and he let the tears flow freely down his face for the first time in weeks. Pearl talked back just as much; she offered Bigb encouragement and advice, not giving a damn about the way things were meant to go in the royal court. Or sometimes she came up with odd questions to debate, or just rambled on about the shape of the clouds in the sky as Bigb listened. She rarely brought up her own life, and she never brought up the curse again. This was their routine for years, until...

It was a cold autumn night, likely the last time they would talk to each other before Pearl went to sleep for the winter. Bigb was sitting down, leaning forwards slightly, nervous.

“I'm turning twenty this winter,” he told Pearl. “Then I'll be coronated, and I'll properly be king.” Technically he had been king since his father died years before, but the monarch wouldn't come into power until he was at least twenty years old; the ministers ruled the country until then.

“Oh, congratulations!” Pearl replied. “Will I have to start calling you 'your majesty' then?”

“Technically, you already do,” Bigb replied, managing a small smile, but it quickly faded and he sighed again. “The thing is... I'll have a lot of responsibilities then. And people paying attention to me all the time... which means I don't know if I'll be able to come to the garden very much.”

“...Oh,” was all Pearl said to that. Bigb's heart broke at the way she sounded, so different from her usual cheerful self.

“They're expecting me to get married, as well,” Bigb continued. “I haven't really been doing much on that front, so Ren's been talking to some of the nobles, and apparently he's picked a duke's daughter for me to marry.”

“Well, I hope she's nice,” Pearl said, quietly.

“I'm sure she will be...” Bigb replied, and then that was the issue: she would be nice, and it would be fine. His whole life, everything had been fine. He studied hard, he followed every protocol, and it wasn't like it killed him inside; and if he got coronated this winter and married the lady, he would be a great king, and he'd be content with that.

But would he be happy​? The only times he recalled being truly happy in the past years was at this pond, talking and laughing with Pearl. “But...”

“But?” Pearl had been looking down at her reflection in the water, but now looked up to Bigb.

“I think I'd rather marry somebody I love.” He cupped his hands and laid them on the stone, in front of Pearl.

Pearl didn't say anything at first, staring at Bigb's hands for a long moment, mouth hanging slightly open. Eventually she hopped into Bigb's hands. With a quiet shaky voice, she spoke: “You'd really...?”

“I would,” Bigb replied as he lifted Pearl up to his face's height. “May I?”

“Wait!” Pearl called out. “Bigb, I... I'm sorry. I haven't told you the full truth about the curse.”

Bigb made a noise of curiosity. They'd never discussed the curse much, but Pearl had said true love's kiss would break it-- turning her human again, he had assumed.

“It's not really a curse, to be honest it's just... how my people are made. If you give me a kiss, I'll change, but... I won't become fully human. And you'll change as well. You'll become the same as me.”

Bigb lowered his hands holding Pearl slightly as he considered that. He'd change as well... if he wasn't human, he couldn't be king anymore. He couldn't be anything anymore, really... but he'd be the same thing as Pearl.

He found he hardly cared about the rest. The ministers had been doing a fine job ruling Evon, he's sure they could figure something out. “That's okay,” he said.

Pearl let out a croak, that sounded happy and sad at the same time. “Bigb, I love you,” she said.

Bigb didn't respond with words, but instead closed his eyes, brought Pearl close and kissed her on her wet lips. As he held the kiss he felt Pearl getting bigger, heavier. She dropped from his hands- were they webbed now?- and embraced him with webbed hands of her own. It was the strangest sensation, but it felt so right.

Pearl pulled away form Bigb, and he opened his eyes to see a pale face that wasn't quite human, but certainly wasn't a frog; and a smile he'd never seen before, but which felt so very familiar nonetheless. Then he started to look down, and quickly looked to the side instead; he thought he should've felt a blush, but his cheeks stayed cold.

Pearl giggled. “Come on,” she said in a voice not so different from the one Bigb had come to know, “let's get out of here.” Then she pulled him into the water. Bigb protested a bit, but the plunge wasn't nearly as unpleasant as he'd expected; the water felt comforting.

“Already?” He asked after pulling his head out of the water, Pearl doing the same.

“Yeah, of course! I don't think your gardeners are going to be very happy to see us like this, mate.”

“Fair enough,” Bigb replied. Part of his mind had thought to say goodbye to Ren at the very least, explain what was going on, but he realised that wouldn't be possible without causing an uproar. And that would just be inappropriate, he'd been taught as much his whole life.

So instead he took Pearl's hand and the two of them swam upstream, out of the gardens, far away from the royal palace of Evon.

And he never looked back.

[arthropod-concoctions]

My @mcytblrholidayexchange gift for @traviezos ! Hope you enjoy these ranchers :]

Thank you to @daisy-bugs for beta reading!

Fic below:

Tango let out a scream of rage, the flames on his head rising up to match the flames engulfing the ranch. He was not having a good time. He'd spent hours of his day working to get a goat horn, only for the entire server to agree not to answer his calls. He'd been lured away from his base with a lie, and returned to find his goats gone; then when he left again, like an idiot, all he got out of it was mocking laughs and now his base burnt to the ground. It was like the whole world was against him.

Except it wasn't him they were against, was it? That was the unfortunate truth of the matter. It seemed like all of these frustrations could be traced back to...

“Tango!” Jimmy suddenly appeared in front of Tango, placing his hands on his shoulders. “Tango, you need to calm down, we can't-”

Tango let out a snarl, and he saw Jimmy's hands flinch away from him. “Oh, don't you tell me to calm down! This is all your fault!”

Jimmy, who had been bouncing on his legs before, suddenly froze. “Excuse me?” he asked.

“If you hadn't stolen that stupid horse, the ranch would've still been standing!”

Jimmy's expression morphed from concern to anger. “That horse belongs on the ranch. You agreed with me! Why's it suddenly a problem now?”

“You didn't have to steal it! No wonder everyone on this server has something against you!”

“Oh, and you're doing better, are you?” Jimmy snapped back. His wings were taut against his back, and he was rubbing his hands together; through the soul link, Tango felt a weird sting on them, like a type of pain he'd never experienced before. “Maybe you shouldn't have built a base out of wood on a server full of arsonists!”

“And I was supposed to know we would have enemies two weeks in?” Tango threw up his arms in frustration. “We don't even have iron armor, and you want me to, what, built a stone fortress right away?”

“That's n-” Jimmy exhaled strongly through his nose. “We're not doing this. You need to calm down, Tango.”

“I'm supposed to calm down while the ranch is burning?” Tango gestured at the ranch, which still looked to be aflame; although, everything looked to be aflame to Tango right now.

He looked back towards Jimmy to see him walking towards a bucketful of powdered snow that Pearl had placed down-- had she been standing there the entire time?-- with a grim expression on his face. He began jogging towards Jimmy. “Wait, Jimmy, please don't-”

Jimmy stuck his hands into the snow.

Tango hissed in pain- though, the pain wasn't as bad as he expected. Of course, water and snow didn't hurt Jimmy, so it was just cold to him. Tango hadn't experienced cold without pain much in his life; it was strangely soothing. In fact, even the odd stinging pain from before seemed to lessen when touching the snow...

Jimmy took his hands out of the snow and started rubbing them together again. Now that tango could get a closer look at them, he noticed they were slightly swollen and coloured dark red, almost purple...

Oh. Tango had seen that before, on his friends from the overworld when they'd explored fortresses together. Those were blaze burns.

“Oh no,” Tango whispered. “Jimmy, I'm so sorry!”

Jimmy sighed. “Feelin' a bit more calm now?”

Tango sighed as well. Deep breaths, in, out. “Yeah, I think so- I am so sorry. I didn't realise I was-” making everything worse?

“Yeah, alright,” Jimmy interrupted him, still stone-faced. “I'm gonna go thank the other guys again for helping put out the fire, maybe you can... I dunno, try and salvage what you can of the ranch?” Jimmy gestured to behind him, where a group of other players-- Etho, Joel, Martyn, Pearl-- had been standing a few feet away. Tango hadn't even noticed them arriving, much less them watching his... tantrum. He nodded dumbly, and Jimmy turned around and started jogging towards them. After a few seconds, Tango shook his head, then went towards the remains of the ranch and started cleaning up wayward splinters of wood, putting cobblestone in their place, as Jimmy instructed. At least he was doing something for this alliance then.

* * *

Jimmy perched on the roof of the somewhat patched-up ranch, watching the sun set. The fire squad was gone, everyone on the server had returned to their home bases, leaving Jimmy at his base... with Tango.

He'd really thought that this alliance would be different. In the first few weeks, Tango had listened to all his plans and happily carried them out, and he'd been so happy when they succeeded; for once it seemed like Jimmy's teammate actually valued him. Then Scar had gone and lit the ranch on fire and...

Jimmy rubbed his hands. Sticking them into powdered snow had helped a bit, but the burns still hurt. The burns that Tango gave him. Jimmy suddenly wondered Tango's hands hurt too. Can blaze hybrids even feel burns? He'd sounded more worried when Jimmy went to cool them down-- he'd sounded almost scared. And then his hiss... Jimmy felt like his heart was getting squeezed. He hadn't meant to hurt his teammate, but... well, he hurt Jimmy first. And not just his hands.

And yet here he was, still sitting on the ranch that he'd told Tango to repair. What else was he meant to do? He didn't exactly feel like joining Scott and Cleo in their little cottages, and he definitely didn't want to be alone like Pearl or Martyn. Was he going to stick with a teammate that didn't really want to put up with him, just like the previous games?

“Jimmy?” a voice called out from down below. Speak of the devil...

Well, time to get this settled, Jimmy thought, as he jumped onto the ground, spreading his wings to break the fall. He still landed quite hard, and he saw Tango, who was standing in the doorway, wince and tense his legs. “Sorry,” Jimmy said automatically.

“Right,” Tango replied, looking at the ground. “I should be the one saying sorry, really.”

“You've already-”

“Not just for burning you. For all that stuff I said, as well. I don't know what got into me, honestly...” Tango shook his head, then finally looked up at Jimmy. “But it wasn't your fault the ranch got burnt down. I shouldn't have said that.”

“...Oh.” Somehow, despite how apologetic Tango had been an hour earlier, Jimmy hadn't expected that. Really, he'd been preparing for Tango to tell him to leave. “Thanks.”

“I hope we... I hope you're not too upset with me,” Tango said. Jimmy nodded, but remained silent; he wasn't sure what to say. Tango was apologising. Tango wanted Jimmy to stay on the team. Did Jimmy want to stay on the team? He didn't want to be alone, that's for sure.

Neither of them did anything for a moment. Tango looked to the side, then after a few moments looked back at Jimmy and said: “You know, this whole thing is really all Scar's fault.”

Despite his foul mood, Jimmy snorted at that. It's all Scar's fault. If only things were that simple... he found himself wanting to believe it.

“And...” Tango continued, “I've been thinking about what we can do to get revenge. I have some plans... but we should probably discuss those inside.” He stepped back and gestured for Jimmy to come in.

Jimmy smiled. “Let's do it,” he said as he went back into the ranch. Into their ranch, to discuss their plans for revenge.

Because they were still sticking together.

[arthropod-concoctions]

Scar laughed when he heard Etho's proposal. “Looking to bring your buddy back from the dead, huh?”

“He's still living with me, and... it'll get awkward if he's red, you know? That's all it is.” Etho looked out of the window as he spoke. If he still cared about Bdubs, he wouldn't show it; Bdubs was red. He should be dead to Etho.

“Alright, alright... just make sure he signs that contract.”

Scar said Bdubs's name, waved the crystal heart past his hand, and just like that it was gone. “One lucky red, to have someone looking out for him.”

* * *

Bdubs was in the middle of making plans with Cleo when his vision was filled with green. He looked down to find two hearts hanging where before there had been one. The second briefly shone green, contrasting with the first's red, before both equaled out to yellow. The color of danger, but not of death.

He looked back up to meet Cleo's eyes-- still red-- and instinctively took a step backwards.

“Who gave you that?” she asked, eyes glimmering with bloodlust-- had he looked like that a moment ago?-- and- envy?

“Who gave you that, Bdubs?” And why not me?

(ao3)

[arthropod-concoctions]

Now with AO3 link!

Sniffer looked up to find himself trapped between blocks of bedrock, for the fourth time this week. Unlike the last three times, this time he also had a note between his fingers; his own handwriting. It said “STOP BEING A COWARD”.

He sighed. Like usual, his past self's intentions were a mystery; it didn't matter how brave or cowardly he was about it, he couldn't get out of this hole without Piglin's help. There was a hole above him that he could squeeze through, but it was too high up to reach, and the crevasse he was in was too narrow to open his elytra. If he had water, he'd be able to swim out, but as usual, he'd forgotten to bring a bucket with him. So he did the only thing he could; grabbed his chat.

<SnifferMyFeet> piglin

<SnifferMyFeet> im stuck again

<PiglinMyNose> LOL

<SnifferMyFeet> get me out

<PiglinMyNose> What's the magic word?

<SnifferMyFeet> i hate you

<SnifferMyFeet> please

<PiglinMyNose> Coming over :-)

Now there wasn't much else for Sniffer to do than wait for rescue. Piglin would show up... eventually. It was impossible to predict how long that'd take. Maybe he'd be over immediately; or maybe he'd have an accident, forget he was supposed to do something, and leave Sniffer in this hole for another three days. Last time he nearly starved to death. Maybe he should do that on purpose next time; maybe that'd shake his memories into place enough to figure out what he was doing here.

Not today, though; he heard Piglin descending into the quarry, and Piglin arriving in a timely manner anywhere was a miraculous enough occurrence that he didn't want to let it go to waste. “Over here!” he yelled towards him, but Piglin was already approaching.

“I know, I know. You always get stuck in the same place,” he said, grinning. “Have you found out anything interesting about that hole yet?” He was pronouncing all his r's today.

“No- well, there must be something, or I wouldn't keep going here, but I keep forgetting what.” That was a problem he and Piglin shared; whenever they got fatally injured, or hit their heads, or even just got spooked badly, their memories would go out of the window and they'd wake up hours or days later in some random situation with no clue how they got there. “Did I tell you why I went over here, maybe?”

“You did say something, actually. Something like... 'I'm going to figure out what's on the other side of that hole', I think. Not going so well, though, is it?”

“The other side? There isn't any other side!” Sniffer twisted around to gesture behind him. “There's just a bunch of spiky rock...” he trailed off as he noticed something.

The crevasse extended outwards a little near his feet. It was mostly more bedrock, but just a little distance away, the rock gave way to pure blackness, like looking down into a massive cavern.

How have I never seen that before? Sniffer thought to himself, but immediately corrected himself; he obviously had seen it before, which is why he kept going into this hole.

“There is something here,” he said to Piglin. “Drop down the water. I'm gonna go deeper into the hole.”

“That's what she said,” he heard Piglin hiss behind him. Sniffer whirled around to face him and took a swipe at his legs with his sword; Piglin dodged it, but he yelped anyways, cutting off his giggle. Sniffer snorted.

“You're being awfully rude for someone who needs my help,” Piglin said, clutching a bucket of water to his chest.

“I'm sorry, alright? Just give me the water.”

Instead of just giving him the bucket, Piglin decided to splash the water directly into Sniffer's face, creating a source block right where he was standing. Annoying, but it'd work. Sniffer held his breath as he turned around in the water, then ducked into the opening in the bedrock. The darkness got closer-

And suddenly Sniffer was dropping downwards. The water flowed straight down, and he barely managed to stay afloat in it. He looked around.

There was nothing under the bedrock. Not a big cave, no lava, no monsters, just endless blackness in all directions. The world border wasn't even here, Sniffer realised. The two of them had gotten used to the shining blue barrier always being visible in the distance, but now, there seemed to be nothing obstructing the way in any direction.

Sniffer swallowed hard. It looked a bit like the End; and if it was anything like the End, he'd be respawning if he went too far down, and this was a very inconvenient time and place to respawn. So he grabbed his rockets, spread his elytra and glided away from the water. It was hard to breathe down here; and it seemed to get harder the further down he went, so he stayed close to the bedrock ceiling looming above. He flew a few circles in the dark space, but he was anxious to go far; something about this place gave him the creeps, not to mention the fact he only had limited rockets with him. After a minute or so, he decided he'd had enough. He turned back towards the hole letting light through the bedrock, and he nearly flew up into it when he noticed the water that Piglin had sent down, flowing out... elsewhere, a few yards away.

There was another hole in the bedrock. Sniffer had completely lost track of his directions by now, so he had no idea where this hole would lead him. He continued circling, and considered. Piglin would probably be worried if he didn't come back up soon... but his curiosity was burning.

Sorry, Piglin, Sniffer thought as he lit a rocket and maneuvered upward, flying through the second gap.

* * * * *

Sniffer rubbed the sore spot on his head; seems like he'd hit his head on something while flying. Right, time to figure out what he was up to before that moment. He was in-

Wait, where on earth was he?

He was in a square, industrial-looking room with no windows and not a speck of colour. It didn't look familiar to him at all. He definitely didn't build this, and he was fairly certain Piglin hadn't built it either. He looked at the floor, and shied away a few blocks; there was a hole in the floor leading to what looked like a very dark cave.

Oh, he suddenly thought, the hole in the bedrock! He'd flown into the crevasse, but that was all he could remember before the blackout. But is seemed like he'd actually gone through the hole this time, and found... whatever this is, on the other side. Well, he wasn't about to let this opportunity go; it was time to explore. He left the room through a doorway with no door installed. It led into a stairway, similarly square and colourless. Whoever built this place could really use some lessons in decorating, Sniffer thought.

At the top of the stairway was another empty doorframe leading into a bigger room, and Sniffer's eyes were immediately pulled to a window revealing some actual colour for a change. The giant window looked out onto a body of water. In the distance, he could see a shore leading into a plains biome, with some structures-

Not just any structures. That was Piglin's house. And more to the left, he could see his own house. It looked terrible from this angle, he noticed. Hadn't he ever approached it from... no, he hadn't, because he suddenly realised where he was located: behind the world border.

Sniffer's heart began beating faster. There were people on the other side of the border? And they were watching him and Pig? He'd never seen this structure he was in before, and he'd gazed longingly through the border countless times. What was going on here? At this point he turned his attention to the smaller monitor in front of the window.

PROJECT SALMACIS

<SUBJECT 1>

<SUBJECT 2>

Project Salmacis? Sniffer had no idea what that was. He tapped the first button.

The screen suddenly showed a picture of himself, and a table of a bunch of incomprehensible information.

SnifferMyFeet

Components: <Grian> + <Smallishbeans>

COHESION INDEX: 4/9

Observations:

- dominant personality switches upon respawn or force to subject's head.

- subject speaks with meld of components' accents.

- PvP skill markedly increased from that of both components.

“Well I appreciate the compliment, but... what?” components? Cohesion? Dominant personality? What was any of this about? He decided to tap the name of one of the components, 'Grian'.

The screen now showed another picture of himself, with... actually, that wasn't him at all! The left half of the figure's face matched his own, but the right half seemed to be some twisted mirror image of the left half. Sniffer yelped in surprise at the disturbing picture, and quickly tapped a symbol in the corner of the screen which thankfully was indeed a 'back' button. There was a bunch of text on that panel too, but he had no interest in learning about whoever-- whatever-- that was.

He was about to go check out what these mysterious observers had to say about Piglin, when suddenly he heard something shatter behind him.

Sniffer spun around to see a cloaked figure standing in the doorway of the room. Next to them on the floor were the remains of a mug and a strange magenta stain, from which wafted the smell of... schadenfreude? That made no sense, but it was the only way Sniffer could explain the smell.

The two of them stared awkwardly at each other for a few seconds before Sniffer spoke up. “Alright, who are you and why are you stalking me and Pig?” he said.

“...You do not belong here,” the figure replied. Their voice echoed strangely, which might have been intimidating if Sniffer couldn't see the confusion plain on their face-- which was entirely grayscale, but otherwise unremarkable. “You were not meant to cross the threshold.”

“Well, I did.” Sniffer took his sword from his hotbar into his hand.

“You know, it says here my PvP skills have improved a lot... you wanna put that to the test?”

Then he charged, and the cloaked figure turned around and ran back into the stairwell. Sniffer gave chase, and closed the distance easily though; the figure's cloak got in the way of their legs, and Sniffer got the sense they weren't exactly used to hurrying. He jumped the last few meters, and raised his sword to plunge it into the figure's neck--

The figure spun around to face Sniffer. His sword pierced their eye and it exploded into more colours than he'd seen anywhere in this place, more colours than he'd seen his entire life-- then white.

* * *

Sniffer respawned in his bed, and almost immediately heard fireworks signaling Piglin's approach.

“Come on, dude, you couldn't have been a bit more careful?” he heard Piglin yell from outside as he went down the stairs. Piglin beat him to the front door, and barged inside. “Now we still don't know what's under there!”

“Under... the bedrock, you mean?” Sniffer replied. “No, I remember that bit, actually. It was just... darkness. Like in the End, but there were no islands anywhere.”

“Oh. Well that explains the death message, at least. Do you remember what happened next?”

“Yeah, I saw another hole in the bedrock, different from where I went down, and I tried to go up it, and... that's where I black out. Weird that I remember all this, if I just respawned right here...”

“Maybe you hit your head on the bedrock, then died falling down?” Piglin suggested. “Now I'm curious what's in that other hole, though.”

“Yeah, maybe...” Sniffer pondered for a few seconds, then waved his hand dismissively.

“Probably just another cave. I wouldn't worry about it.”

[arthropod-concoctions]

Sniffer looked up to find himself trapped between blocks of bedrock, for the fourth time this week. Unlike the last three times, this time he also had a note between his fingers; his own handwriting. It said “STOP BEING A COWARD”.

He sighed. Like usual, his past self's intentions were a mystery; it didn't matter how brave or cowardly he was about it, he couldn't get out of this hole without Piglin's help. There was a hole above him that he could squeeze through, but it was too high up to reach, and the crevasse he was in was too narrow to open his elytra. If he had water, he'd be able to swim out, but as usual, he'd forgotten to bring a bucket with him. So he did the only thing he could; grabbed his chat.

<SnifferMyFeet> piglin

<SnifferMyFeet> im stuck again

<PiglinMyNose> LOL

<SnifferMyFeet> get me out

<PiglinMyNose> What's the magic word?

<SnifferMyFeet> i hate you

<SnifferMyFeet> please

<PiglinMyNose> Coming over :-)

Now there wasn't much else for Sniffer to do than wait for rescue. Piglin would show up... eventually. It was impossible to predict how long that'd take. Maybe he'd be over immediately; or maybe he'd have an accident, forget he was supposed to do something, and leave Sniffer in this hole for another three days. Last time he nearly starved to death. Maybe he should do that on purpose next time; maybe that'd shake his memories into place enough to figure out what he was doing here.

Not today, though; he heard Piglin descending into the quarry, and Piglin arriving in a timely manner anywhere was a miraculous enough occurrence that he didn't want to let it go to waste. “Over here!” he yelled towards him, but Piglin was already approaching.

“I know, I know. You always get stuck in the same place,” he said, grinning. “Have you found out anything interesting about that hole yet?” He was pronouncing all his r's today.

“No- well, there must be something, or I wouldn't keep going here, but I keep forgetting what.” That was a problem he and Piglin shared; whenever they got fatally injured, or hit their heads, or even just got spooked badly, their memories would go out of the window and they'd wake up hours or days later in some random situation with no clue how they got there. “Did I tell you why I went over here, maybe?”

“You did say something, actually. Something like... 'I'm going to figure out what's on the other side of that hole', I think. Not going so well, though, is it?”

“The other side? There isn't any other side!” Sniffer twisted around to gesture behind him. “There's just a bunch of spiky rock...” he trailed off as he noticed something.

The crevasse extended outwards a little near his feet. It was mostly more bedrock, but just a little distance away, the rock gave way to pure blackness, like looking down into a massive cavern.

How have I never seen that before? Sniffer thought to himself, but immediately corrected himself; he obviously had seen it before, which is why he kept going into this hole.

“There is something here,” he said to Piglin. “Drop down the water. I'm gonna go deeper into the hole.”

“That's what she said,” he heard Piglin hiss behind him. Sniffer whirled around to face him and took a swipe at his legs with his sword; Piglin dodged it, but he yelped anyways, cutting off his giggle. Sniffer snorted.

“You're being awfully rude for someone who needs my help,” Piglin said, clutching a bucket of water to his chest.

“I'm sorry, alright? Just give me the water.”

Instead of just giving him the bucket, Piglin decided to splash the water directly into Sniffer's face, creating a source block right where he was standing. Annoying, but it'd work. Sniffer held his breath as he turned around in the water, then ducked into the opening in the bedrock. The darkness got closer-

And suddenly Sniffer was dropping downwards. The water flowed straight down, and he barely managed to stay afloat in it. He looked around.

There was nothing under the bedrock. Not a big cave, no lava, no monsters, just endless blackness in all directions. The world border wasn't even here, Sniffer realised. The two of them had gotten used to the shining blue barrier always being visible in the distance, but now, there seemed to be nothing obstructing the way in any direction.

Sniffer swallowed hard. It looked a bit like the End; and if it was anything like the End, he'd be respawning if he went too far down, and this was a very inconvenient time and place to respawn. So he grabbed his rockets, spread his elytra and glided away from the water. It was hard to breathe down here; and it seemed to get harder the further down he went, so he stayed close to the bedrock ceiling looming above. He flew a few circles in the dark space, but he was anxious to go far; something about this place gave him the creeps, not to mention the fact he only had limited rockets with him. After a minute or so, he decided he'd had enough. He turned back towards the hole letting light through the bedrock, and he nearly flew up into it when he noticed the water that Piglin had sent down, flowing out... elsewhere, a few yards away.

There was another hole in the bedrock. Sniffer had completely lost track of his directions by now, so he had no idea where this hole would lead him. He continued circling, and considered. Piglin would probably be worried if he didn't come back up soon... but his curiosity was burning.

Sorry, Piglin, Sniffer thought as he lit a rocket and maneuvered upward, flying through the second gap.

* * * * *

Sniffer rubbed the sore spot on his head; seems like he'd hit his head on something while flying. Right, time to figure out what he was up to before that moment. He was in-

Wait, where on earth was he?

He was in a square, industrial-looking room with no windows and not a speck of colour. It didn't look familiar to him at all. He definitely didn't build this, and he was fairly certain Piglin hadn't built it either. He looked at the floor, and shied away a few blocks; there was a hole in the floor leading to what looked like a very dark cave.

Oh, he suddenly thought, the hole in the bedrock! He'd flown into the crevasse, but that was all he could remember before the blackout. But is seemed like he'd actually gone through the hole this time, and found... whatever this is, on the other side. Well, he wasn't about to let this opportunity go; it was time to explore. He left the room through a doorway with no door installed. It led into a stairway, similarly square and colourless. Whoever built this place could really use some lessons in decorating, Sniffer thought.

At the top of the stairway was another empty doorframe leading into a bigger room, and Sniffer's eyes were immediately pulled to a window revealing some actual colour for a change. The giant window looked out onto a body of water. In the distance, he could see a shore leading into a plains biome, with some structures-

Not just any structures. That was Piglin's house. And more to the left, he could see his own house. It looked terrible from this angle, he noticed. Hadn't he ever approached it from... no, he hadn't, because he suddenly realised where he was located: behind the world border.

Sniffer's heart began beating faster. There were people on the other side of the border? And they were watching him and Pig? He'd never seen this structure he was in before, and he'd gazed longingly through the border countless times. What was going on here? At this point he turned his attention to the smaller monitor in front of the window.

PROJECT SALMACIS

<SUBJECT 1>

<SUBJECT 2>

Project Salmacis? Sniffer had no idea what that was. He tapped the first button.

The screen suddenly showed a picture of himself, and a table of a bunch of incomprehensible information.

SnifferMyFeet

Components: <Grian> + <Smallishbeans>

COHESION INDEX: 4/9

Observations:

- dominant personality switches upon respawn or force to subject's head.

- subject speaks with meld of components' accents.

- PvP skill markedly increased from that of both components.

“Well I appreciate the compliment, but... what?” components? Cohesion? Dominant personality? What was any of this about? He decided to tap the name of one of the components, 'Grian'.

The screen now showed another picture of himself, with... actually, that wasn't him at all! The left half of the figure's face matched his own, but the right half seemed to be some twisted mirror image of the left half. Sniffer yelped in surprise at the disturbing picture, and quickly tapped a symbol in the corner of the screen which thankfully was indeed a 'back' button. There was a bunch of text on that panel too, but he had no interest in learning about whoever-- whatever-- that was.

He was about to go check out what these mysterious observers had to say about Piglin, when suddenly he heard something shatter behind him.

Sniffer spun around to see a cloaked figure standing in the doorway of the room. Next to them on the floor were the remains of a mug and a strange magenta stain, from which wafted the smell of... schadenfreude? That made no sense, but it was the only way Sniffer could explain the smell.

The two of them stared awkwardly at each other for a few seconds before Sniffer spoke up. “Alright, who are you and why are you stalking me and Pig?” he said.

“...You do not belong here,” the figure replied. Their voice echoed strangely, which might have been intimidating if Sniffer couldn't see the confusion plain on their face-- which was entirely grayscale, but otherwise unremarkable. “You were not meant to cross the threshold.”

“Well, I did.” Sniffer took his sword from his hotbar into his hand.

“You know, it says here my PvP skills have improved a lot... you wanna put that to the test?”

Then he charged, and the cloaked figure turned around and ran back into the stairwell. Sniffer gave chase, and closed the distance easily though; the figure's cloak got in the way of their legs, and Sniffer got the sense they weren't exactly used to hurrying. He jumped the last few meters, and raised his sword to plunge it into the figure's neck--

The figure spun around to face Sniffer. His sword pierced their eye and it exploded into more colours than he'd seen anywhere in this place, more colours than he'd seen his entire life-- then white.

* * *

Sniffer respawned in his bed, and almost immediately heard fireworks signaling Piglin's approach.

“Come on, dude, you couldn't have been a bit more careful?” he heard Piglin yell from outside as he went down the stairs. Piglin beat him to the front door, and barged inside. “Now we still don't know what's under there!”

“Under... the bedrock, you mean?” Sniffer replied. “No, I remember that bit, actually. It was just... darkness. Like in the End, but there were no islands anywhere.”

“Oh. Well that explains the death message, at least. Do you remember what happened next?”

“Yeah, I saw another hole in the bedrock, different from where I went down, and I tried to go up it, and... that's where I black out. Weird that I remember all this, if I just respawned right here...”

“Maybe you hit your head on the bedrock, then died falling down?” Piglin suggested. “Now I'm curious what's in that other hole, though.”

“Yeah, maybe...” Sniffer pondered for a few seconds, then waved his hand dismissively.

“Probably just another cave. I wouldn't worry about it.”

[arthropod-concoctions]

and lizzie's left wondering; was she planning this the whole time?

@mcyt-summer-of-yuri treat for @arthropod-concoctions!

[arthropod-concoctions]

...and yes, this was my fic for @hermitcraftguesstheauthorevent ! I had a blast participating, and i hope everyone enjoyed reading!

Has my luck turned?

Day eight at the mall, and Tango had to say, he was getting pretty comfortable. The fourth floor contained an electronics store, a furniture boutique, and a big supermarket with fridges that were miraculously both still functioning, and still stuffed with food and drinks. Most of it wasn't healthy, of course, but victims of the apocalypse couldn't be choosers, and with the amount of running from monsters and crazy people he'd done in the past year, Tango felt he'd earned the right to have instant burgers and soda for dinner for a week. He sat down on a soft chair with his freshly microwaved cheap meal, reached into his backpack, and grabbed the radio that he'd taken from the electronics store. He turned it on and twiddled with the frequencies until he found the only channel that still worked: the one where someone who'd broken into the radio station had been rambling whatever came to his mind into the microphone for at least the last week. Tango listened to today's story, seemingly an anecdote from the guy's high school life, as he ate.

“...so, yeah, that's how we got crowned 'cutest couple' in the yearbook despite being literally one week from a breakup.” the man laughed. “God. I'm getting loopy, I need to find something to eat. Signing off, i have been Martyn Littlewood as usual, and if... if you're an actual person hearing this, please come look for me at the radio station in Midcanyon. Please. I need to know I'm not losing my mind here. Alright, bye by-”

A crack, and then Tango was alone with the static and his lukewarm meal again.

Briefly, he considered going out to find the radio station, but he quickly discarded the idea. That sounded like something a competent and heroic person would do, and if there was one thing he'd learnt the past year, it was that he was neither of those things. Well, that wasn't entirely fair. He'd been pretty heroic when he joined team BEST. And he'd done some good things in the-- what was it, a month?-- where they were actually helping people. And it was hardly his fault that brain demons had started to show up, and one got to Bdubs, and then to everyone but Tango, and then- Tango exhaled through gritted teeth. Replaying it all in his head wouldn't help now any more than it had the past hundred times. That chapter's over now, for better or worse. He finished eating, stuffed the radio back into his pack, then got up to put his plate into a garbage bin that hadn't overflown yet. Maybe he should try emptying the bins at some point. Then, at least he could say he was still some kind of positive influence on-

The ground rumbled.

“Oh, god, not again!” Tango dropped his plate on the ground, and looked around frantically. He didn't see anything breaking just yet, but the rumble wasn't getting any softer, and earthquakes were not common occurrences in the area. Whatever was happening now was almost certainly another Disaster. After probably a few seconds too many just standing there, Tango made a decision: he had to get out of here. He began running to the exit of the store. As soon as he crossed the doorway into the main hallway of the mall, the entire building shuddered, and Tango distantly heard windows shattering. Tango yelped, but didn't stop running. Stairs, stairs, he had to get to the stairs- He reached the stairs and ran down to the third floor. He continued on to the second floor, but then slipped and fell down the last three steps like an idiot. He hissed, partly because his knee hurt, partly from frustration. Alright, no time to feel sorry! Keep moving! He got to his feet again, heaving heavy breaths, and stepped down the next stair- A flow of honest-to-god lava sloshed at the bottom of the staircase, seemingly coming up from a crack in the ground. Tango skidded to a halt. Oh. Well, nevermind then, Tango thought. Guess I'll just die in here. He felt a wave of heat from the lava and instinctively stepped back up the stairs. He turned, around, stepped back into the hallway, and- Something feathery crashed into him from the side. Oh, great. There were monsters as well. Tango fell down, wisely used all his breath to scream at the top of his lungs, and reached for the pistol that he'd pilfered from somewhere months ago and had just been hanging uselessly on his belt since then. A gun wouldn't do much against lava, or the other nonsense he'd dealt with, but it'd probably deal well with a feathery monster. Although, looking up again, the figure that crashed into him didn't look too monstrous. Actually, that just looked like a person who'd also been knocked to the ground. A blond man, with yellow feathers growing out of his face and arms, with wide eyes and his hands raised.

A canary. Right. Some people were having an even worse time with the apocalypse than Tango.

“Oh, you're a person!” Tango said, though not much sound came out of his throat. He immediately took his hand off the gun again. “Sorry.” He hadn't seen anyone else in this area for a while.

The canary mouthed something in response, and got up. Tango watched him approach the staircase, go down one step, and freeze, exactly as he'd done.

“Yeah, no. That's not the way to happiness. We're sort of screwed here,” Tango said, as he got to his feet as well.

The canary turned to Tango and said something, pointing his thumb backwards.

“What?” Tango said, like a fool. Canaries couldn't speak during Disasters. That was pretty much their whole thing. “Sorry, I don't know any sign language.”

The canary repeated the gesture, pointing and mouthing more exaggeratedly this time. After a second, he just turned around and began jogging down the hallway. Tango decided to wager that he was probably saying 'follow me', and followed. That proved to be harder than expected; the floors shook irregularly, making it hard to keep his balance, and his knee still hurt. Tango was panting again by the time he caught up to the canary; the man had been waiting at an emergency exit.

He opened the door when Tango reached him, and the two left the building onto a metal staircase. Tango looked at the scenery outside. The mall looked out over a massive parking lot leading out onto what used to be the road network, but was now just a slab of asphalt intermittently cracked by dandelions-- having broken through slowly but steadily for the past year-- and lava, which was doing the same thing in the span of minutes. It seemed to be seeping out of the ground from cracks which were expanding in length, but not in width. In fact, one of the cracks was snaking dangerously close to the foundations of the mall...

A horrendous metallic screeching snapped Tango out of his stupor. Right. He was supposed to be escaping. He followed the canary down the staircase- Ah. The cause of the horrible noise had been the bottom stairs curling upwards, getting bent out of shape by the heat and the pressure of the lava coming up at the exact place where the staircase touched the ground. Or in other words, right in the middle of the only route of escape the two of them had.

Tango laughed. What else was he supposed to do? He'd gone from having a lovely life in a giant mall ahead of him to almost certainly dying in the very same mall in, what, five minutes? The building shook again. Tango looked over at the canary, who was gripping the handrails of the stairs with both hands, leaning over.

Tango walked over to him and slapped him on the shoulder. “Well, it was nice knowing you, friend. Sorry about the-”

The canary suddenly reached over and grabbed Tango's hand, clearly wanting to get his attention. Tango looked at him, and he mouthed something; again, Tango didn't know what, but it seemed like the last word was 'back'. His eyes were wide.

“We can't go back, dude,” Tango replied, hazarding a guess at what the man was trying to say. “There's just more fire and sadness back there.”

The canary shook his head, frustration visible on his face. He brought a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes, still muttering something. Tango shrugged apologetically.

Then the canary took a deep breath in and out, grabbed both of Tango's arms, and... wrapped them around himself?

“Oh. Uh... okay,” Tango stammered, now hugging the man. “Look, I know this is a heated moment and all, but-”

The canary spread out his arms and jumped backwards, pulling Tango with him; then they were falling.

“HEY!” Tango yelled, now holding on to the canary for dear life. He'd seen how far above the ground they were; too far to survive a fall like this unscathed. He really hoped the other man had a plan- The man waved his arms, and their descent slowed considerably. Surprised, Tango turned his head to the side; the yellow feathers which had been laying flat on the man's arms earlier were now standing straight up, and apparently catching a good amount of air. He continued flapping, and they were definitely still falling, not flying, but it seemed like they might...

Tango heard the canary's legs hitting the ground a moment before he felt his own landing; bolts of pain shot through both of his legs this time. They buckled, and he fell forwards, his fall being unfortunately cushioned by the canary's body.

He rolled to the side until his backpack stopped him, then let out another scream for good measure. “What is wrong with you!?” he yelled in the canary's direction.

He didn't respond; his eyes were squeezed shut, and his face contorted with pain. Tango immediately regretted saying that. “Nevermind. Sorry. Thanks for saving my life. uh...” he stood up and swiveled his head around to look at the lava, which was still coming up from the ground all around them. The heat was already making Tango sweat. He held out his hand to the canary. “Can you walk? We should probably get out of here.”

the canary nodded and took his hand, and Tango pulled him up. Then they hobbled their way out of the molten labyrinth, as fast as their aching legs could take them.

* * * * *

The disaster ended almost as abruptly as it started; pretty soon after Tango and his new buddy had made it out of the parking lot, the lava seeping from the ground slowed, then stopped. When the ground had properly stopped rumbling, the canary slowed his pace, then all but collapsed onto the soil. Tango decided to follow his example.

“Whew,” Tango exclaimed as he sat down. “Guess that's my exercise for the day done.” He looked over at the canary, who was panting just as he was. He held out his hand. “I'm Tango, by the way. Hi.”

The canary looked at him, grinned, then took his hand and shook it. His lips moved, but sound still wasn't coming out.

While most of the disasters that kicked off the end of the world had been unique and highly localised, the emergence of canaries seemed to have been a worldwide phenomenon. Tango hadn't actually met any in person up until now, but he'd heard enough accounts of it to know how it happened. On the 17th of June, 2022, for no apparent reason, about one percent of Earth's population lost their voices and suddenly had yellow feathers burst out of their arms and faces. A few minutes later, hell broke loose. It turned out their mutism wasn't permanent, but rather only happened when in proximity of the Disasters that would plague the world constantly starting the very same day. The 'canaries', as people began to call them, were blamed for the Disasters at first, even as they swore to have nothing to do with it all. People thought they were aliens, or demons, or even experimental super-soldiers created by the government; whatever would fit into their desperate attempts to explain the end of the world. Tango never really bought any of those explanations. Life's a bitch, is what he'd say, and it seemed to him like the canaries were just exceptionally unlucky people on an even unluckier planet. And having met the man sitting next to him only solidified that perception.

Tango's mouth was dry. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a plastic bottle full of water. “Lugging this thing around for a week is finaly paying off,” he said, took a few sips of water, then offered the bottle to the canary. He took it eagerly and immediately drained almost all the water that was inside.

“Wow, thanks for leaving some for later,” Tango said flatly. Then he saw the canary's face drop and quickly backpedaled: “Oh, don't worry about it! There were plenty of bottles in the mall, I can go back and get some more...”

He looked back towards the oversized building. It was now standing slightly crooked, one half of the top few floors had collapsed, and there seemed to be flames flickering in the busted windows. “Yeah... I can totally just go do that. Won't be a problem.”

And indeed, Tango went to do that. It wasn't as bad as he imagined; a good amount of the mall was still accessible, and right at the entrance there was a shop who's aisles-- and floors, thanks to the earthquakes-- still held anything you might need on a 24-hour drive, or a few weeks in anarchy if you camped out here. It was kind of eerie, how untouched everything was. Like the world had been just fine until yesterday. But whatever blessing or curse had kept everything that way had been broken today, along with every fridge in the building. Tango wouldn't be able to survive here much longer. So he ventured as far into the mall as he could, trying to decide what necessities to take with him. The canary quietly followed him along. At first Tango tried to make some conversational comments as he went, but it was hard to stay quippy with an audience that couldn't respond and an imminent relocation hanging over your head, so eventually they just continued in silence.

While they were making their way across a particularly messy corridor, the canary tripped over something and exclaimed in pain. “Watch your step, dude,” Tango commented. Then he registered what had actually just happened and spun around. “Hey, your voice is back!”

A smile appeared on the canary's face. “I can talk!” he exclaimed; and his voice caught Tango off guard.

“You're British?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

“I-” the canary paused for a moment, a baffled expression on his face. Then he tilted his head backwards and began laughing.

“'You're British',” the man repeated between wheezes, leaning against an aisle. “We can finally properly talk, and that's the first thing you say to me. Oh my gosh.”

“I... I wasn't expecting that, is all,” Tango replied weakly, pressing a hand against his neck. “Sorry, that was rude.”

The canary raised a hand to stop him. “No, dude, don't worry about it. It was funny.” When he'd recovered from his laughing fit, he opened his eyes and looked at Tango. “My name's Jimmy, by the way.”

Tango nodded. “Jimmy. Alright, cool,” he said. “Uh...”

Okay, the excuse of his conversation partner being mute didn't work anymore. Maybe Tango was just socially incompetent.

“Right,” Jimmy said. “Well, I guess we'd better continue packing. Anything else you need?”

“Hmmm...” Tango glanced into his now bulging backpack. “I dunno. I guess just as many cans and bottles as will fit in here.”

Jimmy shrugged. “Looks pretty full to me, not gonna lie.”

“Yeah, i guess, but-” Tango sighed. “I dunno. I have no idea when my next chance to restock like this is gonna be, so I don't wanna waste anything, you know?”

“Plenty of people have set up farms and ranches and stuff around the countryside. You could probably stop by one of those and get more stuff in exchange for chores or something,” Jimmy said.

Tango nodded along. “Yeah, you're probably right. And it's probably better not to travel too heavy...”

“Hey, on the other hand,” Jimmy interjected, making a finger gun motion with his hand, “If you bring a couple extra cans you can throw them at raiders.”

Tango barked out a laugh at that. He appreciated the joke-- and the advice. It was nice having somebody to talk to, even if only for a little while.

“Well, that's a plan then. Alright, how about one more meal in here before we... go on our ways?” Tango asked.

“Uh... yeah, that sound good, yeah,” Jimmy replied. Tango thought he sounded a bit disappointed, but he decided not to read into it. The canary seemed to know what he was doing, and Tango wasn't about to just... insert himself into the guy's plans.

The two of them made their way over to a soft sitting spot in the mall's hallway, bringing two more cans of food from the shop to eat right now. As Jimmy cracked them open using a shard of glass, Tango pulled his radio out of his backpack. “You listened to the radio lately?” he asked Jimmy.

“No. Is it still working?”

“There's just one guy who broke into a radio station, I guess, and he just rambles into the mic now,” Tango explained, and again he turned the knobs on the radio until he heard some barely-on-key singing:

“You gotta knoow, you have to fiight, learn to play, there's monsters day and night~”

Tango chuckled, but when he looked at Jimmy to see his reaction, he wasn't laughing. His face had gone pale.

“That's- I know him!” he exclaimed, pointing at the radio.

“Wait, really?” Tango replied.

“Yeah, he- he's a friend of mine. I lost track of him after the apocalypse happened, I thought he- oh gosh,” Jimmy continued, then clamped his hand over his mouth.

“Jeez,” Tango said. “You know, he keeps saying- he keeps asking people to come and find him at the radio tower in Midcanyon. I wasn't gonna do it, but maybe-”

“I have to go find him,” Jimmy finished the sentence, while turning off the radio. “I have to. W-” Jimmy stopped himself, and looked Tango in the eyes.

And Tango-- look, he just said he wasn't gonna insert himself into Jimmy's plans, but that was a decision made mostly out of self-preservation. He doubted Jimmy would want to continue dealing with him, and if he was gonna have to spend the rest of his probably short life wandering around alone, he'd rather do it with pride than thinking back to an embarrassing misunderstanding the whole time. But looking at Jimmy now, he was starting to think that was a stupid decision.

So he made the gamble: “Do... you want me to go with you?”

Jimmy's shoulders visibly sagged with relief. “Yeah, I- I'd love that, actually. Thanks.”

“Not a problem, dude!” Tango replied quickly, cheering internally. “You saved my life, I've gotta repay that somehow, and if- honestly, this seems like a better deal for me than it is for you.”

“Are you kidding!?” Jimmy exclaimed. “You're the one with food and a radio- and a gun! You've got it all figured out!”

Tango laughed. “If that's what you think, you might regret this arrangement real soon, just a warning.”

Jimmy chuckled at the joke-- and it suddenly hit Tango how long, before meeting Jimmy, it'd been since he had seen a genuine human smile. Team BEST had been a joyless group, in its last couple days, and then he'd been alone for god knows how long. But now he was hanging out with Jimmy, and hopefully, with Martyn soon.

Look at me, making friends and having goals in my future! Tango thought as he scooped dry vegetables out of the can Jimmy had handed him. Maybe my life won't be as futile as I thought.

[arthropod-concoctions]

Has my luck turned?

Day eight at the mall, and Tango had to say, he was getting pretty comfortable. The fourth floor contained an electronics store, a furniture boutique, and a big supermarket with fridges that were miraculously both still functioning, and still stuffed with food and drinks. Most of it wasn't healthy, of course, but victims of the apocalypse couldn't be choosers, and with the amount of running from monsters and crazy people he'd done in the past year, Tango felt he'd earned the right to have instant burgers and soda for dinner for a week. He sat down on a soft chair with his freshly microwaved cheap meal, reached into his backpack, and grabbed the radio that he'd taken from the electronics store. He turned it on and twiddled with the frequencies until he found the only channel that still worked: the one where someone who'd broken into the radio station had been rambling whatever came to his mind into the microphone for at least the last week. Tango listened to today's story, seemingly an anecdote from the guy's high school life, as he ate.

“...so, yeah, that's how we got crowned 'cutest couple' in the yearbook despite being literally one week from a breakup.” the man laughed. “God. I'm getting loopy, I need to find something to eat. Signing off, i have been Martyn Littlewood as usual, and if... if you're an actual person hearing this, please come look for me at the radio station in Midcanyon. Please. I need to know I'm not losing my mind here. Alright, bye by-”

A crack, and then Tango was alone with the static and his lukewarm meal again.

Briefly, he considered going out to find the radio station, but he quickly discarded the idea. That sounded like something a competent and heroic person would do, and if there was one thing he'd learnt the past year, it was that he was neither of those things. Well, that wasn't entirely fair. He'd been pretty heroic when he joined team BEST. And he'd done some good things in the-- what was it, a month?-- where they were actually helping people. And it was hardly his fault that brain demons had started to show up, and one got to Bdubs, and then to everyone but Tango, and then- Tango exhaled through gritted teeth. Replaying it all in his head wouldn't help now any more than it had the past hundred times. That chapter's over now, for better or worse. He finished eating, stuffed the radio back into his pack, then got up to put his plate into a garbage bin that hadn't overflown yet. Maybe he should try emptying the bins at some point. Then, at least he could say he was still some kind of positive influence on-

The ground rumbled.

“Oh, god, not again!” Tango dropped his plate on the ground, and looked around frantically. He didn't see anything breaking just yet, but the rumble wasn't getting any softer, and earthquakes were not common occurrences in the area. Whatever was happening now was almost certainly another Disaster. After probably a few seconds too many just standing there, Tango made a decision: he had to get out of here. He began running to the exit of the store. As soon as he crossed the doorway into the main hallway of the mall, the entire building shuddered, and Tango distantly heard windows shattering. Tango yelped, but didn't stop running. Stairs, stairs, he had to get to the stairs- He reached the stairs and ran down to the third floor. He continued on to the second floor, but then slipped and fell down the last three steps like an idiot. He hissed, partly because his knee hurt, partly from frustration. Alright, no time to feel sorry! Keep moving! He got to his feet again, heaving heavy breaths, and stepped down the next stair- A flow of honest-to-god lava sloshed at the bottom of the staircase, seemingly coming up from a crack in the ground. Tango skidded to a halt. Oh. Well, nevermind then, Tango thought. Guess I'll just die in here. He felt a wave of heat from the lava and instinctively stepped back up the stairs. He turned, around, stepped back into the hallway, and- Something feathery crashed into him from the side. Oh, great. There were monsters as well. Tango fell down, wisely used all his breath to scream at the top of his lungs, and reached for the pistol that he'd pilfered from somewhere months ago and had just been hanging uselessly on his belt since then. A gun wouldn't do much against lava, or the other nonsense he'd dealt with, but it'd probably deal well with a feathery monster. Although, looking up again, the figure that crashed into him didn't look too monstrous. Actually, that just looked like a person who'd also been knocked to the ground. A blond man, with yellow feathers growing out of his face and arms, with wide eyes and his hands raised.

A canary. Right. Some people were having an even worse time with the apocalypse than Tango.

“Oh, you're a person!” Tango said, though not much sound came out of his throat. He immediately took his hand off the gun again. “Sorry.” He hadn't seen anyone else in this area for a while.

The canary mouthed something in response, and got up. Tango watched him approach the staircase, go down one step, and freeze, exactly as he'd done.

“Yeah, no. That's not the way to happiness. We're sort of screwed here,” Tango said, as he got to his feet as well.

The canary turned to Tango and said something, pointing his thumb backwards.

“What?” Tango said, like a fool. Canaries couldn't speak during Disasters. That was pretty much their whole thing. “Sorry, I don't know any sign language.”

The canary repeated the gesture, pointing and mouthing more exaggeratedly this time. After a second, he just turned around and began jogging down the hallway. Tango decided to wager that he was probably saying 'follow me', and followed. That proved to be harder than expected; the floors shook irregularly, making it hard to keep his balance, and his knee still hurt. Tango was panting again by the time he caught up to the canary; the man had been waiting at an emergency exit.

He opened the door when Tango reached him, and the two left the building onto a metal staircase. Tango looked at the scenery outside. The mall looked out over a massive parking lot leading out onto what used to be the road network, but was now just a slab of asphalt intermittently cracked by dandelions-- having broken through slowly but steadily for the past year-- and lava, which was doing the same thing in the span of minutes. It seemed to be seeping out of the ground from cracks which were expanding in length, but not in width. In fact, one of the cracks was snaking dangerously close to the foundations of the mall...

A horrendous metallic screeching snapped Tango out of his stupor. Right. He was supposed to be escaping. He followed the canary down the staircase- Ah. The cause of the horrible noise had been the bottom stairs curling upwards, getting bent out of shape by the heat and the pressure of the lava coming up at the exact place where the staircase touched the ground. Or in other words, right in the middle of the only route of escape the two of them had.

Tango laughed. What else was he supposed to do? He'd gone from having a lovely life in a giant mall ahead of him to almost certainly dying in the very same mall in, what, five minutes? The building shook again. Tango looked over at the canary, who was gripping the handrails of the stairs with both hands, leaning over.

Tango walked over to him and slapped him on the shoulder. “Well, it was nice knowing you, friend. Sorry about the-”

The canary suddenly reached over and grabbed Tango's hand, clearly wanting to get his attention. Tango looked at him, and he mouthed something; again, Tango didn't know what, but it seemed like the last word was 'back'. His eyes were wide.

“We can't go back, dude,” Tango replied, hazarding a guess at what the man was trying to say. “There's just more fire and sadness back there.”

The canary shook his head, frustration visible on his face. He brought a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes, still muttering something. Tango shrugged apologetically.

Then the canary took a deep breath in and out, grabbed both of Tango's arms, and... wrapped them around himself?

“Oh. Uh... okay,” Tango stammered, now hugging the man. “Look, I know this is a heated moment and all, but-”

The canary spread out his arms and jumped backwards, pulling Tango with him; then they were falling.

“HEY!” Tango yelled, now holding on to the canary for dear life. He'd seen how far above the ground they were; too far to survive a fall like this unscathed. He really hoped the other man had a plan- The man waved his arms, and their descent slowed considerably. Surprised, Tango turned his head to the side; the yellow feathers which had been laying flat on the man's arms earlier were now standing straight up, and apparently catching a good amount of air. He continued flapping, and they were definitely still falling, not flying, but it seemed like they might...

Tango heard the canary's legs hitting the ground a moment before he felt his own landing; bolts of pain shot through both of his legs this time. They buckled, and he fell forwards, his fall being unfortunately cushioned by the canary's body.

He rolled to the side until his backpack stopped him, then let out another scream for good measure. “What is wrong with you!?” he yelled in the canary's direction.

He didn't respond; his eyes were squeezed shut, and his face contorted with pain. Tango immediately regretted saying that. “Nevermind. Sorry. Thanks for saving my life. uh...” he stood up and swiveled his head around to look at the lava, which was still coming up from the ground all around them. The heat was already making Tango sweat. He held out his hand to the canary. “Can you walk? We should probably get out of here.”

the canary nodded and took his hand, and Tango pulled him up. Then they hobbled their way out of the molten labyrinth, as fast as their aching legs could take them.

* * * * *

The disaster ended almost as abruptly as it started; pretty soon after Tango and his new buddy had made it out of the parking lot, the lava seeping from the ground slowed, then stopped. When the ground had properly stopped rumbling, the canary slowed his pace, then all but collapsed onto the soil. Tango decided to follow his example.

“Whew,” Tango exclaimed as he sat down. “Guess that's my exercise for the day done.” He looked over at the canary, who was panting just as he was. He held out his hand. “I'm Tango, by the way. Hi.”

The canary looked at him, grinned, then took his hand and shook it. His lips moved, but sound still wasn't coming out.

While most of the disasters that kicked off the end of the world had been unique and highly localised, the emergence of canaries seemed to have been a worldwide phenomenon. Tango hadn't actually met any in person up until now, but he'd heard enough accounts of it to know how it happened. On the 17th of June, 2022, for no apparent reason, about one percent of Earth's population lost their voices and suddenly had yellow feathers burst out of their arms and faces. A few minutes later, hell broke loose. It turned out their mutism wasn't permanent, but rather only happened when in proximity of the Disasters that would plague the world constantly starting the very same day. The 'canaries', as people began to call them, were blamed for the Disasters at first, even as they swore to have nothing to do with it all. People thought they were aliens, or demons, or even experimental super-soldiers created by the government; whatever would fit into their desperate attempts to explain the end of the world. Tango never really bought any of those explanations. Life's a bitch, is what he'd say, and it seemed to him like the canaries were just exceptionally unlucky people on an even unluckier planet. And having met the man sitting next to him only solidified that perception.

Tango's mouth was dry. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a plastic bottle full of water. “Lugging this thing around for a week is finaly paying off,” he said, took a few sips of water, then offered the bottle to the canary. He took it eagerly and immediately drained almost all the water that was inside.

“Wow, thanks for leaving some for later,” Tango said flatly. Then he saw the canary's face drop and quickly backpedaled: “Oh, don't worry about it! There were plenty of bottles in the mall, I can go back and get some more...”

He looked back towards the oversized building. It was now standing slightly crooked, one half of the top few floors had collapsed, and there seemed to be flames flickering in the busted windows. “Yeah... I can totally just go do that. Won't be a problem.”

And indeed, Tango went to do that. It wasn't as bad as he imagined; a good amount of the mall was still accessible, and right at the entrance there was a shop who's aisles-- and floors, thanks to the earthquakes-- still held anything you might need on a 24-hour drive, or a few weeks in anarchy if you camped out here. It was kind of eerie, how untouched everything was. Like the world had been just fine until yesterday. But whatever blessing or curse had kept everything that way had been broken today, along with every fridge in the building. Tango wouldn't be able to survive here much longer. So he ventured as far into the mall as he could, trying to decide what necessities to take with him. The canary quietly followed him along. At first Tango tried to make some conversational comments as he went, but it was hard to stay quippy with an audience that couldn't respond and an imminent relocation hanging over your head, so eventually they just continued in silence.

While they were making their way across a particularly messy corridor, the canary tripped over something and exclaimed in pain. “Watch your step, dude,” Tango commented. Then he registered what had actually just happened and spun around. ���Hey, your voice is back!”

A smile appeared on the canary's face. “I can talk!” he exclaimed; and his voice caught Tango off guard.

“You're British?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

“I-” the canary paused for a moment, a baffled expression on his face. Then he tilted his head backwards and began laughing.

“'You're British',” the man repeated between wheezes, leaning against an aisle. “We can finally properly talk, and that's the first thing you say to me. Oh my gosh.”

“I... I wasn't expecting that, is all,” Tango replied weakly, pressing a hand against his neck. “Sorry, that was rude.”

The canary raised a hand to stop him. “No, dude, don't worry about it. It was funny.” When he'd recovered from his laughing fit, he opened his eyes and looked at Tango. “My name's Jimmy, by the way.”

Tango nodded. “Jimmy. Alright, cool,” he said. “Uh...”

Okay, the excuse of his conversation partner being mute didn't work anymore. Maybe Tango was just socially incompetent.

“Right,” Jimmy said. “Well, I guess we'd better continue packing. Anything else you need?”

“Hmmm...” Tango glanced into his now bulging backpack. “I dunno. I guess just as many cans and bottles as will fit in here.”

Jimmy shrugged. “Looks pretty full to me, not gonna lie.”

“Yeah, i guess, but-” Tango sighed. “I dunno. I have no idea when my next chance to restock like this is gonna be, so I don't wanna waste anything, you know?”

“Plenty of people have set up farms and ranches and stuff around the countryside. You could probably stop by one of those and get more stuff in exchange for chores or something,” Jimmy said.

Tango nodded along. “Yeah, you're probably right. And it's probably better not to travel too heavy...”

“Hey, on the other hand,” Jimmy interjected, making a finger gun motion with his hand, “If you bring a couple extra cans you can throw them at raiders.”

Tango barked out a laugh at that. He appreciated the joke-- and the advice. It was nice having somebody to talk to, even if only for a little while.

“Well, that's a plan then. Alright, how about one more meal in here before we... go on our ways?” Tango asked.

“Uh... yeah, that sound good, yeah,” Jimmy replied. Tango thought he sounded a bit disappointed, but he decided not to read into it. The canary seemed to know what he was doing, and Tango wasn't about to just... insert himself into the guy's plans.

The two of them made their way over to a soft sitting spot in the mall's hallway, bringing two more cans of food from the shop to eat right now. As Jimmy cracked them open using a shard of glass, Tango pulled his radio out of his backpack. “You listened to the radio lately?” he asked Jimmy.

“No. Is it still working?”

“There's just one guy who broke into a radio station, I guess, and he just rambles into the mic now,” Tango explained, and again he turned the knobs on the radio until he heard some barely-on-key singing:

“You gotta knoow, you have to fiight, learn to play, there's monsters day and night~”

Tango chuckled, but when he looked at Jimmy to see his reaction, he wasn't laughing. His face had gone pale.

“That's- I know him!” he exclaimed, pointing at the radio.

“Wait, really?” Tango replied.

“Yeah, he- he's a friend of mine. I lost track of him after the apocalypse happened, I thought he- oh gosh,” Jimmy continued, then clamped his hand over his mouth.

“Jeez,” Tango said. “You know, he keeps saying- he keeps asking people to come and find him at the radio tower in Midcanyon. I wasn't gonna do it, but maybe-”

“I have to go find him,” Jimmy finished the sentence, while turning off the radio. “I have to. W-” Jimmy stopped himself, and looked Tango in the eyes.

And Tango-- look, he just said he wasn't gonna insert himself into Jimmy's plans, but that was a decision made mostly out of self-preservation. He doubted Jimmy would want to continue dealing with him, and if he was gonna have to spend the rest of his probably short life wandering around alone, he'd rather do it with pride than thinking back to an embarrassing misunderstanding the whole time. But looking at Jimmy now, he was starting to think that was a stupid decision.

So he made the gamble: “Do... you want me to go with you?”

Jimmy's shoulders visibly sagged with relief. “Yeah, I- I'd love that, actually. Thanks.”

“Not a problem, dude!” Tango replied quickly, cheering internally. “You saved my life, I've gotta repay that somehow, and if- honestly, this seems like a better deal for me than it is for you.”

“Are you kidding!?” Jimmy exclaimed. “You're the one with food and a radio- and a gun! You've got it all figured out!”

Tango laughed. “If that's what you think, you might regret this arrangement real soon, just a warning.”

Jimmy chuckled at the joke-- and it suddenly hit Tango how long, before meeting Jimmy, it'd been since he had seen a genuine human smile. Team BEST had been a joyless group, in its last couple days, and then he'd been alone for god knows how long. But now he was hanging out with Jimmy, and hopefully, with Martyn soon.

Look at me, making friends and having goals in my future! Tango thought as he scooped dry vegetables out of the can Jimmy had handed him. Maybe my life won't be as futile as I thought.

[arthropod-concoctions]

[ID: A parody of a Rolling Stones album cover. It features Keralis, Iskall, Zedaph, and xB's minecraft skins all facing left and gradually shrinking in size in that order. All the skins are dark and only faintly visible, and all of them are illuminated by yellow light from behind. The image has a dark blue background with a light source in the lower left. Text at the top reards: "The Deadline is here! The collection is now closed!" Text on the bottom reads: "Readers: It's time! Guessing starts now! /end ID]

THE COLLECTION IS NOW CLOSED!

READERS: It's time to start guessing! A list of all our authors can be found under the cut, and on the collection itself!

You will have ONE WEEK from today to get your guesses in! Click that link there for a handy-dandy countdown clock we've prepared!

HOW DO YOU GUESS?

This year, we've got two options for you! First, LEAVE A COMMENT! Read the fic, let the author know what you liked, and guess!

But also, mod Knife Emoji is currently preparing a Guessing Form that we'll be linking! We'll have some fancy stats at the end of all of this, so once that form goes live, we'll update this post! Please go check it out when the time comes!

Authors, kick back and relax. Readers... GET READY! IT'S YOUR TIME TO SHINE!

See below for a list of our authors!

Our wonderful authors, in no particular order:

MawoftheMagnetar (3 Works!)

KitsunesPawz

OshawottWarrior (3 works!)

TheDepressedCanary (FPSCanarussia)

FountainPenguin (8 works!)

TheHumanDictionary

xCa1iber

DaisyBugs

EvilRat_Sabre

SunriseSquirrel (2 works!)

Ducksarenice

Aquinnix

SentientMango(2 works!)

MyEpicPseudonym

ALiteral_Ghost (2 works!)

Cringe_Is_Dead (A_Plethora_Of_Peters) (2 works!)

FuzzyTheNarwhal

ImagineThat0327

MelonSloth

GlitraHasConsumedMe (10 Works!)

Enderphyte (2 works!)

Unhonest-Iago (Trashland_Llamas) (2 works!)

shortfeather (forecastsaysrain)

Justlukahere (4 works!)

Orphancrow (4 works!)

AzureCake16 (3 works!)

EloquentOrNot (3 works!)

TiamatisObscure

Leopardmask (2 works!)

NekoDere07 (3 Works!)

Writer207

Enderwoah

1watermelontea

EagleWarrior161

boxmaker

ThatOneWaterCat486

TimeToCommitCrimes (2 works!)

AshesIntheWritten

Enen_Enby_Amanita

Strawberrylemonade_changling

Inquillitory

corundumcat

EntropicThyme

the_dark_abyss

Nine_of_Diamonds

Magicalfrog (2 works!)

thatgirlfromasgard

Ace_of_Arthropods

aggressiveCries

AstronautBeans

Watch Me Whirl (An_Oni_Mouse)

di_fairy

c4max9440

If you see any mistakes on this list, please shoot us an ask and let us know right away!

[arthropod-concoctions]

some Jleo royalty AU for @pearlsstims for the @mcyt-summer-of-yuri event!

Joe heard the door to her office creak open as she dipped her quill into an ink bottle and continued writing.

Joe glanced at the doorway. “I'm working on some important correspondence, and I'd rather not be interrupted while I...” she trailed off once she registered who it was that was standing at the entrance to her office. “Oh, howdy, your majesty!”

“Hi, Joe,” King Cleo replied with a chuckle. It was dark in the hallway outside, so they were illuminated only by the candles burning on Joe's desk. The flickering light made the crown on their head shimmer gently, and caused their hair to appear alive with a fire within, almost like it were made out of snakes. Cleo was always a sublime sight, Joe thought, but especially now. “What could you possibly still be writing at this hour?”

“Well, I'd sent out letters yesterday announcing the new ruler to our most important neighbors, and Lord Doc immediately sent back a re-declaration of independence, so now I'm just poring over these letters trying to figure out if I accidentally implied re-dependence of the Perimeter to Hermiton anywhere, and...” she sighed. “Yeah. So I'm gonna be here for another hour, probably.”

“And you think you'll do a better job at that now than in the morning, after a good night's sleep? I'm sure Doc won't mind if our response comes two days later rather than one.” Cleo had walked over to Joe by this point, and wrapped their arms around her shoulders. “Okay, he'll mind. But he won't actually do anything about it. Come, join me in my room.”

And, well, Joe wasn't about to argue with her king's request-- nor with the warm feeling of their arms around her. So she put away her quill, sealed off the inkwell, and got up. Cleo kissed her on the forehead, then grabbed her hand and started walking.

They passed through the dimly lit hallways of the castle that had up until recently belonged to King Ren the Dog. Cleo hadn't staged a coup, exactly-- they'd just waited for a mob of commoners to depose the king, then when the dust had settled down, gently suggested to the rebel leaders that they try again with a mostly-new royal court and some more laws in favor of helping the people, rather than feeding the king's decadence. That also meant significantly less servants in the castle; which is how Cleo and Joe were able to walk around with their hands clasped, and no worries about gossip spreading.

“Whatever happened to the royal Hotguy, anyways?” Joe asked conversationally as the two of them entered the king's bedroom.

“Scar? He's still in jail.” Cleo set their crown on a pillow on their nightstand, and fell down onto their king-sized bed with a sigh. “I have no intention of releasing him anytime soon, to be honest. He was a bit too loyal to Ren for my tastes.” They yawned. “Why'd you ask?”

“Oh, just thinking about our... arrangement,” Joe replied, sitting down on the side of the bed and leaning backwards, letting her head rest on Cleo's belly. The two of them had sort of a reverse Hotguy situation on their hands; instead of a lover who was 'secretly' an assassin, Joe was a letterer who was secretly the king's lover. They'd carefully kept their relationship secret while they were both ministers under Ren; it'd be taboo for two ministers to be courting one another. But the situation had changed so much, Joe wasn't sure where she stood anymore. Although she did know where she laid-- in Cleo's bedroom-- so she wasn't too worried about it.

“Yeah, me too,” replied Cleo, as they ruffled Joe's hair with one hand. They took a deep breath, as if about to say something, then released it slowly again.

After about a minute they spoke. “You didn't even tell me about Doc's letter before writing a reply. It's almost like you're ruling the kingdom already.”

“Yeah, sorry, I just figured you were probably busy and I could... wait, what do you mean 'already'?” Joe replied, lifting her head to look Cleo in the eyes.

They smiled nervously, then sat up and left the bed. Joe sat up as well, curious as to where this was going. Cleo rummaged through the drawer of their nightstand, and said: “I assume you know this by now, but I love you, Joe.”

Joe nodded. “I love you t-”

“And although prior circumstances have made it impossible,” they continued, pulling a small box out of the drawer and walking around the bed until they were next to Joe, “I think we're long overdue for this.” They got onto one knee and opened the box, which contained a small ring studded with a single bright green emerald.

“Joe, will you marry me and become the queen of Hermiton?”

Joe blinked.

Then blinked again.

Then blurted out: “Can we do that?!”

“Yeah, a'course we can. What are they gonna do about it, report us to the king?”

Then all at once, Joe's sense returned to her and she exclaimed: “Oh- yes! Yes, of course I want to marry you!” She rushed forwards to embrace Cleo, nearly falling off of the bed in doing so; but Cleo stood up and leaned into the hug, catching her in the process.

Joe thought nothing at all as Cleo loaded her with kisses; her head was filled with a buzz of glee. They weren't going to keep their relationship secret any longer. They were going to announce it to the whole world, even! Cleo dropped onto the bed, and Joe flopped down next to them, still in their arms.

“I think my brain just stopped working,” Joe said after a minute of blissful silence.

Cleo giggled. “That's impressive, knowing you,” they said.

“I can't believe it never occurred to me that we can just... get married now.” Joe draped her arm around Cleo's shoulder. “So when should we have the wedding?”

Cleo rolled onto her back and shrugged. “I dunno. It doesn't have to be big, I think. The people might appreciate if the royal wedding looks like that of some regular people.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. We should probably still invite the leaders of other regions though... I'm gonna have to write invitations-”

“No.” Cleo grabbed Joe's arm, as if to physically stop her, though she wasn't moving. “You're not allowed to turn this into more work for yourself, Joe. I forbid it.”

“What? How is this my fault? You're the one proposing, did you think we wouldn't invite anybody?”

“Well yes, we will, but writing the invitations won't be your job anymore,” Cleo noted. “When you're queen, we'll hire a new letterer.”

“...Well maybe I want to write those letters,” Joe replied petulantly. “If I'm gonna be queen, you can't tell me what to do anymore. The king doesn't outrank the queen.”

“Then I'm asking you as your wife. Just relax and enjoy this, love.”

And here, in bed with her betrothed and no one around to judge them, for once that was no trouble for Joe.

[arthropod-concoctions]

Team name: Dutch 1

Writer: @ace-of-arthropods​

Artist: @agarafile​

Beta: @capriciouswriter207​

Title: “Blijf daar waar je (niets) voorstelt”

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56761894/chapters/144302902

Ratings/Warnings: poor experiences with religion, eye injuries

Characters: Ethoslab, Smajor1995

Summary: Etho mist Rivendel niet bepaald. Hij heeft nooit echt in Aeor geloofd, en hij was gelukkiger in de eeuwen dat hij door andere werelden reisde dan hij was toen hij daar woonde.Dat maakt het niet minder ongemakkelijk als hij per ongeluk de achtertuin van de koning overhoop haalt.

Art:

[arthropod-concoctions]

Martyn mined, partially to gather resources, partially because the boring activity would get him a moment's reprieve from the prying eyes that Watched.

He couldn't help but feel disappointed when he heard Bdubs shouting down the tunnels. Still, he put on a smile, prepared to resume the act, and responded to his call.

And… nothing happened.

His path crossed Bdubs', and they talked about things They should surely be interested in, but he felt no presence.

Eventually he dropped to a whisper: "Where are the Watchers?"

"Oh, i told them to leave," Bdubs replied lightly.

"…You told them to leave?"

[arthropod-concoctions]

And here's a treat i wrote for @oshawottarchive, inspired by @greenix' fantastic artwork "The statue queen and her knight!" very happy i managed to finish this one in time for the @mcytrecursive exchange.

Rating: Not Rated

Archive Warning: Major Character Death

Category: Gen

Fandom: Secret Life SMP

Relationships: Ethoslab & ZombieCleo, Grian & EthosLab

Characters: ZombieCleo, EthosLab, Grian

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, kind of; theres monsters at least, Weeping Angels - Freeform, EthosLab (Video Blogging RPF) is a Weeping Angel (Doctor Who), Gorgon ZombieCleo (Video Blogging RPF), Time Travel, petrifcation

Summary: What happens when two monsters that can't kill each other cross paths?

Fic below the cut!

Deep in the labyrinthine halls of an abandoned temple that only the exceedingly reckless dared enter, a gorgon stood next to a petrified warrior, trying on his armor.

Cleo fastened the clasps of the breastplate, but quickly unclasped them after seeing how poorly it fit. She sighed as she put the armor back onto the warrior's body. She was getting a bit tired of the dress she was wearing, but none of her recent victims had anything that fit her. It's because female warriors are going out of fashion again, she thought, and no civilians ever enter this temple anymore. Maybe she should try going out into their settlements again. That didn't end too well for her last time, but honestly, she was starting to get bored all alone in here...

“ˈiːθəʊ?” a voice suddenly called out. “hɛˈləʊ?” Cleo froze in place, almost like one of her own victims, trying to determine the source of the call. It was clearly a human, but that wasn't a word in any human language she knew. she also heard footsteps now, seemingly getting closer.

The same words were called out again, and the footsteps grew louder. Maybe this was some fool from foreign lands, who hadn't understood the locals' warnings about this place. That would be a nice opportunity. Cleo began to move towards the sound.

A man with unusually light hair turned the corner, and Cleo watched the expression on his face go from concern to relief to horror within a second. He screamed, first wordlessly in terror, then again in some unknown language. “ wɒt ɑː juː-”

Cleo lifted her veil, and the scream died on stone lips.

“An honour to meet you too.” Cleo said. She moved over to inspect her newest statue, but she could already tell it was going to be a good one. Most of her recent work didn't show abject terror like this one, they were too prepared for her presence. And the clothing-

Huh. The clothing wasn't like anything she'd seen before. The man wore tight-fitting trousers that were almost as grey as his skin now was, made of a material she could not identify. By contrast, the garment he wore over his torso was as red as blood, and very soft- soft enough to make Cleo gasp slightly as she ran her finger over it. it didn't fit the man's form in the slightest, almost as if it'd been made for somebody else. Fortunately, that meant it might fit her as well.

“I'll be taking this... whatever it is, thank you,” they said as they lifted the garment off of the statue, and chuckled. Who were you, oblivious wanderer? She found herself wondering. Where did you come from?

– – –

Etho stalked restlessly through the overgrown stone building. He'd picked this spot to camp out, hoping he'd easily blend in with the statues all around, but that was days ago, and he hadn't seen a single human since. And he was getting hungry. He was beginning to suspect humans purposely avoided this place. Maybe they did that because of the statues? He'd heard once that some humans were scared by statues. Which was stupid; why would they make statues if they were scared of them? These couldn't possibly all be his fellows either. He froze in place, which told him that there was somebody seeing him. Finally, he thought. He couldn't see anybody, which meant they must be behind him. He could hear footsteps, and then, a voice.

“...You're new,” the voice said, and then the human it belonged to stepped into Etho's view-

Nevermind. Etho was quite certain humans didn't usually have snakes emerging from their heads. The not-human woman was wearing several layers of mismatched, brightly coloured clothes, and a veil covering the top half of their face. They circled around him, hands clasped behind their back, almost as if they were inspecting him. Infuriatingly enough, Etho saw them blink, but couldn't regain his mobility; the eyes of the snakes watched him too, not leaving him unobserved for a moment.

“I didn't even know i could catch other monsters,” they said, and Etho felt them touch one of his wings. He wasn't sure how he felt about that statement. “You're definitely getting a place of honor... but first, I'm gonna try on that mask.”

Then they did something Etho definitely did not like: they reached towards his mask, aiming to take it off. That would nullify his only trump card, unless he played it now.

“Please don't,” he said. The woman stopped.

“What!?” they yelled out, then took several steps backwards. “How are you talking?” they demanded. The snakes on their head seemed surprised by their sharp voice, which was good for Etho; it meant they at least didn't consciously control two dozen eyes.

“You're not technically looking at my mouth. The mask covers it,” Etho replied. It was a trick that most of his fellows knew, but few ever used it. The mask just got in the way unless you liked talking to your victims, like he did.

“That's not how this...” the woman trailed off, flabbergasted. “Oh, whatever. Monsters petrify by different rules, i guess.”

“Monster? Oh, come on now. I'm just a regular human. Who turns to stone when you look at him. Something which you are used to, apparently,” Etho rambled. If he had an organic body, he would be sweating right now. Normally he'd be having these kinds of conversations with regular people, and he'd be able to move about two percent of the time, leaving him comfortably in control. With this creepy snake lady his mobility was reduced to zero percent, which was a whole different story.

They just chuckled at his remark. “And has wings. Can't forget about that.” They briefly placed their hand on a wing again, then took it off. “What's your name?”

“Etho.”

They turned their head sharply at that. “How long have you been in this temple, Etho?”

“...Two, three days?”

“Well now that can't be true,” they said, eyes narrowing, “because I've been getting confused wanderers walking in here calling out your name for at a century.”

Ah. He figured this had to come up eventually. “...It's complicated. Let's just say, those people haven't entered the temple yet.”

They grunted. “Traveling through time, then? Doesn't seem that complicated to me.

“Well, Etho, I am the gorgon Cleo. I'm the scourge of this temple, as they say, so I'm supposed to chase out or kill anyone who dares enter, but...” a small smile quirked their lips. “Well, clearly I can't get rid of you, because you have to be around in the future to send these people to me. So it looks like I'll have to... tolerate your presence near me.” Despite their words expressing disappointment, Cleo's voice didn't sound disappointed at all. They sounded happy about it, even.

“...Thank you?” Etho replied. He decided to keep to himself the fact that he was unlikely to stay here for much longer if there really were barely any people. Unfortunately, they did have a point; causality dictates that he would have to hunt here at some point in time, and it didn't seem like he would ever be able to get to Cleo, given the amount of eyes they had. So, it would be better to keep them happy for now.

“You're welcome,” Cleo replied, still smiling. “So, I understand you can't move as long as I'm looking at you?”

“Maybe,” Etho replied. “Maybe I'm just standing really still for fun, though.”

they laughed at that. “Right. Well, I can't keep you here forever, so I suppose I'll get out of your way for now. Until we meet again, angel Etho.”

With that, Cleo turned around and walked back the way they came. Before turning the corner, they looked back to see Etho still standing where he was; some of the snakes on their head had been lookng in his general direction still. They waved at Etho.

Then they turned, and as soon as Etho was removed from all their lines of sight, he was gone. That was by far the strangest conversation he'd ever had. It looked like he would have to abandon this hunting ground, which was a shame-- it really would have been a fun one, had it not already been occupied. Although, the gorgon didn't seem to mind sharing the space with him. they seemed happy about it, even. That was the weirdest thing; never before had he ended a conversation with someone on good terms. They always ended with one person hunting the other-- but he could never hunt Cleo, and they could never hunt him, so instead they were... friendly with each other. Fascinating.

Maybe he'd give the temple another shot after all.

_ _ _

This is it, Grian thought to himself as he took a deep breath, then stepped through the gate-like shape of the rubble, into the gate filled with statues. His head swiveled around, looking for one that seemed out of place. He wasn't entirely sure what to expect-- well, no. He knew exactly what to expect: a talking statue. That's what this ruin was known for, after all. He just didn't know the details; what did the statue look like? Did it move as well as talk? This place didn't have as much documentation as other monsters' domains in the area, which is exactly why Grian was drawn to it.

“Hello, weary traveler!” A voice suddenly spoke up, interrupting his thoughts. Grian turned around to see the answer to his questions: a stone statue of a winged figure, wearing a scarf across his face. He was standing with his hands on his hips. “What brings you here?” he asked.

“Oh. You, mostly,” Grian replied. Honestly, he wasn't expecting his exploration to be over so soon. Did the statue really have to come right to him?

“Aww, me? You shouldn't have. I'm just a humble tour guide.” Grian never saw the angel move, but every time he blinked he had a different stance- and was standing slightly closer to Grian. “There's so many beautiful statues here. Don't you want to take a look at them?”

Grian shrugged. He might as well make the most of this trip. “Sure. Lead the way.”

“Great!” the angel responded, and didn't move. Grian blinked, and he moved about a foot, then stopped again. “Uh, maybe you following me isn't the most efficient way to do this. Just wander around, and I'll provide the commentary.”

Grian snorted, then followed the angel's advice and started looking around the yard. The first thing he noticed was that all the statues-- apart from the angel-- were naked. Some of them were holding what looked like weapons and shields, but they were rotting, not sculpted from stone like the bodies. And most of them were striking thoroughly unimpressive poses. The whole thing weirded Grian out a little. The statues didn't look anything like what he would call art, realistic though they were. “Do you have any idea who made these?” he asked the angel.

“An old friend of mine,” he replied. Then he asked: “So, I'm famous, huh?”

“Yeah, kind of.” Grian turned around and searched the room for the angel, and saw that he was standing between some sculptures, filling a gap in the rows. He fit there weirdly well. “Everyone knows this as the ruin with the talking statue. Uh- do you have a name, by the way?”

“Etho.”

Grian hummed. It was a surprisingly... modern name. “My name's Grian,” he replied, then continued looking at the statues. He'd noticed some of them were covered in some weird dust, which he figured might be the remains of fabric clothing. Whoever made these statues had apparently decided to dress them in actual clothes, instead of simply sculpting them clothed. In order to avoid looking at what the decayed clothing was failing to cover, Grian now focused on the faces of the sculptures. Some of them-- mostly the ones holding decayed weaponry-- had an expression of noble determination on their face, but the majority of the statues looked scared. And they were incredibly detailed; to the point it gave Grian the creeps. “Your friend had some... interesting artistic visions,” he said.

The angel-- Etho-- chuckled. “Isn't it great?” he asked. Grian decided his honest answer to that might not be what Etho wanted to hear, so he didn't respond.

Etho spoke up again. “'The ruin with the talking statue', you say... is that all this place is known for?”

“...I think so, yeah. Why?”

“No stories about, like... people who go inside and never return?”

That did not help with Grian's creeps in the slightest. “Why would you ask that!?” he asked, spinning around to face Etho.

“Oh, no reason. Hey, have you seen that statue there yet?” he replied, moving with a blink to point somewhere behind Grian.

Grian hesitated to turn around, suddenly worried what Etho might do behind his back. This feels like a trap, he thought; but at the same time, he was very curious what the angel was getting at. He took a few steps backwards, ensuring that Etho didn't get too close to him-- then he turned around. Behind him was another statue with face and limbs contorted in apparent terror- A very familiar face, actually. The face Grian saw every time he looked into the mirror. Grian's blood ran cold. There was a statue of him in this ruin. Why the hell was there a statue of him? Was this some kind of elaborate prank someone pulled on him? The statue's moles lined up exactly with his own. No, it couldn't be a prank, he hadn't brought anybody with him on this trip. He was alone in this ruin with Etho- Etho! Grian whirled around to face the angel, but couldn't find him. He'd only been turned around for a few seconds, where could he have gone?

“Oh, wonderful!” Grian heard a voice behind him, and spun around again to find Etho's face inches from his own, his hand reaching towards the scarf around his neck. “Looks like you get to meet my old friend!”

Grian backed away, breathing deeply. He looked at Etho, avoiding blinking as long as possible- but it wasn't long enough. The second his eyes closed, he heard an indescribable static noise and felt a horrible squeezing sensation around his entire body... And then it was over, and Grian was still in the ruin, and he felt fine. Except... was he still in the ruin? The sun was coming from a different angle, the place looked less decrepit than it did before, and there were significantly less statues. There was no sign of Etho.

“What in the... Etho?” Grian called out, his terror having mostly changed into confusion. “Hello?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

[note: the bits in IPA read "Etho?" "Hello?" and "What are you-" respectively.]

[arthropod-concoctions]

I had an amazing time participating in the @mcytrecursive exchange these last months! I've made a gift for @sharo-maneru, based on her and SugarsweetRomantic's fic Speak to the gods, and they shall answer.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Fandom: Hermitcraft SMP

Relationship: Zedaph & Docm77

Character: Zedaph

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Religion, Mythology - Freeform, not inspired by any specific myths, liberal use of epithets, Animal Sacrifice, not shown but repeatedly mentioned, Ascending to Godhood.

Summary: The story of an inventor, driven by desperation into godhood.

Text of the fic below the cut!

The inventor was the son of shepherds. He loved his parents and their sheep greatly, always taking care of them both, but there was nothing he loved more than inventing. Hours upon hours he would sit in his room, creating contraptions of all shapes and sizes. He would sell some of them; to like-minded inventors as inspiration, or to other farmers and friends of his parents, on the rare occasion that there was a clear way to use the device. Many of the devices remained in his house, existing just to sate the inventor's curiosity, and to be a curiosity to his parents.

It was one such day, when the man was deeply invested in his creations, that armed figures arrived at their doorstep. They demanded to be given their best sheep, as an offering to their gods. The shepherds, who were getting old and were in no shape to protest, complied.

When the inventor realised what had happened he was distraught. He berated himself for being so caught up in his work he didn't interfere, but his parents told him there was nothing he could've done.

“All we can do now is pray that they don't return,” they said, and so they did.

But the warriors did return. Every week they would come and demand a sheep, and every time the shepherds complied, their herd dwindling quickly.

The inventor grew restless. There had to be something he could do to save his and his family's livelihood, he thought as he lay awake one night. But his parents were right; he had never been trained for combat, so he had no hope of stopping them that way. All he could do was pray; but they had been praying for months, and had received no help. Meanwhile, the warriors took their sheep as offerings, to gain the favor of their own gods.

It was unfair, he thought. Why do they gain the favor of the gods by taking from us, while we receive nothing but silence for our suffering?

Then, an idea sparked in the inventor's mind. Maybe he had to do a little more than pray to receive the gods' help.

The next day he returned to his workshop with a fervor; he was crafting with purpose now. He took an armful of ram's horns they had stored away, and fashioned them into a crown to wear on his head, adding a support that would lean on his shoulder to help manage the weight. He took the mystical red dust that powered so many of his creations and mixed it with crushed blue stone, creating a glowing purple paste to paint his face with. He took a pristine woolen blanket that he used in wintertime and made it into a coat, using the same paste to decorate it with intricate patterns. Then he went outside, gathered many heavy stones, put them into a large bag and tied the bag to a pulley, in such a way that the stones would be released at the pull of a trigger. After his preparations, he told his parents that one way or another, the gods would ensure the warriors did not return.

Seven days after the previous raid, the inventor took his disguise and painted his face, went outside, and waited. He had never seen the warriors that terrorised his family's homestead, a fact which he saw as a blessing now; it meant they had never seen him either.

The sun was setting when they arrived, and the inventor quickly understood why his parents had never argued with them. They wore heavy armor and carried fierce weapons. The inventor grew nervous at the sight of them, and he almost decided to stay hidden, let go of his plan-- but a burst of determination hit him. He had to do this, or his family's livelihood would be gone. He rose from his position and approached the warriors.

“Just what do you think you're doing?” he called out, and the warriors spun around in shock.

“Who are you?” One of them asked, pointing a spear in the disguised inventor's direction.

“You know who I am. Offerings of sheep have brought me here,” he replied, resisting the urge to draw away from the spear. A god would not flinch at a mortal's weapon. Fortunately, the support of his crown of horns forced his head to stay proudly upright.

He saw the looks on the warriors' faces; some looked skeptical, but many others seemed to believe him. The long shadows of the setting sun obscured the edges where his disguise failed, and the shining swirls of paint on his face and cloak would make him look otherworldly, especially to those unfamiliar with the properties of redstone.

When the leader of the troupe spoke, his voice was tinged with awe: “Are... are You satisfied with our offerings? Have You come to bless our mission?”

“'Your' offerings? You must be mistaken,” the man appearing as a god said. “Are you the ones that raised and cared for those sheep?” He took a step forward; the warrior took a step back.

“Are you the ones that depended on those sheep to live? And are you the ones that had them taken from you, putting your lives at risk to feed Me?” he continued, stepping forward with each question.

When the leader spoke again, his voice was trembling. “We are the ones that cast the-”

“No. I have seen these sheep's lives, and I know where they came from. As far as I am concerned, the offers to my favor were made by these shepherds.”

One more step forward. “And they only prayed for one thing: to be left alone. So leave.” With those words, the inventor released a string he had been covertly holding; the string connected to a large pulley, which had been holding up the bag of stones. They now clattered to the ground, causing a powerful rumbling and making the ground tremble.

The warriors, frightened by this display of power, fled. The inventor breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that he'd scared the warriors off for good, and he and his parents could live their lives in peace.

It was when he turned around that he saw a different figure, the sight of whom made his disguise pale in comparison. A shining green light coalesced into the silhouette of a man, with long curved horns like those of a goat's protruding from his head; he towered over the inventor, face unreadable.

“You are bold, mortal, to claim to be one of Us,” the god said.

The inventor gulped, his bravado threatening to leave him, but curiosity prevailed over his fear. If this was a god-- and it had to be, even he couldn't comprehend how to form an illusion like this-- then this was a chance like none other to finally receive answers.

“Why have You come now?” he whispered. “Why not earlier?”

“I have been watching you,” the god replied, his voice sounding like a whisper yet clearly audible. “Testing your inventiveness... and your faith. I chose to reveal myself after seeing what you've done today.”

Of course. Pretending to be a god was blasphemy of the highest degree. “I'm sorry, I didn't think-” he stammered, then looked down at the ground. “Well, I thought you'd abandoned us. That was foolish of me, I shouldn't have-”

But the god interrupted him. “No. Look at me,” he said. The inventor obeyed, and watched the god's appearance shift; his skin and clothing shifted from being made of green light to natural colors, he morphed from a towering figure to a man's height, and his horns seemed to fade into the distance, forming just a faint green outline of his head. He looked intimidating, but human. And he smiled.

“I was like you, once. I believed myself to be equal to the gods, greater, even, and proclaimed this proudly.” His voice sounded more natural now, and the inventor heard a foreign accent as the man-god spoke. “To show me how wrong I was, the gods decided to give me exactly what I wanted: an inkling of Their divinity.

“They called it a curse, but I call it a blessing. It is an existence of power, but also loneliness; and that is why I turned my attention to you. What is your name, mortal?”

The inventor's mouth was dry. He understood the god's words, understood what he was offering, yet could not believe it. A fraction of divinity; the ability to see the world as a whole, to be able to create with only a thought? Who could possibly call that a curse? And yet-

“Will I be able to see my parents again?” he asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.

“You will always watch over them, but they can never see you. What is your name, mortal?” the god repeated.

He didn't like the idea of that loneliness, but again, curiosity prevailed over his fear. He could not decline. “Zedaph,” he said.

The god's smile widened into a grin, almost mischievious. “I am Doc. Follow me, friend. We have much to talk about.”

And so the God of Invention, patron of shepherds, became twofold. And though the shepherds mourned for their son, they would never be attacked again.

[arthropod-concoctions]

Reflections

For the @mcytrecursive exchange!

About a month or so ago I took part to draw a scene from Mirror Mesa \\ That I'm alive again for Ace_of_Arthropods! Highly recommend looking at the rest of the collection including this lovely podfic I got!

As for extra content uhhhhh have this palette I put together

I feel obliged to also tell you that someone made a post headcannoning that when jimmy and Joel became allies he planted swamp azaleas everywhere to signify their alliance. (Will link if I find it again) And when I searched them up they coincidentally matched my Motifs how could I NOT.

[arthropod-concoctions]

need more appreciation for the fic writers of this fandom. i want to see more of those posts where people give shoutouts to their favorite artists but for writers. and more reblogs (!!!) under writers’ posts